LAS VEGAS -- In a small conference room at the Venetian
Resort here, Expedia Group CEO Mark Okerstrom delivered a message that surely
is music to travel advisors' ears: Despite Expedia's grand designs to invest
heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, he's confident
that offline travel retailers will continue to thrive.
"Traditional travel agents have carved out a great place for
themselves," Okerstrom said. "There's still a need for agents in complex
travel, the complex trips that are multi-legged, that include many different
stops."
But while others in the industry generally agree that AI won't
be replacing human travel advisors anytime soon, they also predict that the
agencies that do excel will be the ones that effectively incorporate machine
learning into their operations.
Norm Rose, senior technology analyst for Phocuswright,
predicted, "The best travel agents will figure out how to use AI so that AI
takes care of the simple stuff and they can take care of the complex stuff."
Added Henry Harteveldt, founder of Atmosphere Research
Group: "Travel agency management can't ignore AI, and smart travel agents will
read up about it."
AI and its offshoot of machine learning remain relatively
new phenomena. In a Nov. 20 presentation at the Phocuswright Conference in
Hollywood, Fla., Google vice president of engineering for travel Oliver
Heckmann said major breakthroughs have come in the past five years.
With its vast troves of customer data, Google, which
declined to comment for this report, is perhaps the company with the most
potential to make use of AI in the travel landscape. However, Google also has
lots of priorities beyond travel. The enormous online travel companies Expedia
Group and Booking Holdings are plunging forward, as well.
Expedia Group spent $1.6 billion on technology investments
in 2018 alone. At the company's Explore 19 conference last month, executives
promised strong, ongoing tech investments as they work to remove friction from
travel and to offer more tailored services, both to customers and to partners
such as hotels and vacation-rental owners.
Within the next year, said Abhijit Pal, head of research for
Expedia's Travel Partner Group, the company hopes to have completed merging the
data systems of its various OTAs. Doing so will enable Expedia to develop more
complete profiles of individual customers, information that will aid a
machine-learning algorithm as the company strives to offer increasingly nuanced
and customized responses to travel searches.
Expedia has also already introduced an AI-powered virtual
agent chatbot.
Booking Holdings is employing similar technology.
"For example, when you land on our site and aren't sure
where you want to go yet, we can make suggestions for you, leveraging all past
user data and machine-learning models," said Robert Ahearn, Booking's managing
director for the Americas.
Booking's chatbot, Ahearn said, can answer basic inquiries,
but human input is needed for more complex ones.
"We don't see technology replacing humans anytime soon," he
said, "but [we do see] the two working together to create a seamless customer
experience."
Indeed, some traditional leisure and business agencies are
already deploying tools that combine AI-powered automation with the touch and
knowledge of a human travel advisor.
For example, Silicon Valley-based 30SecondsToFly powers
AI-assisted bookings at travel management companies, including Adelman and
Flight Centre, using its Claire chatbot.
Users start their search with the automated bot, which uses
the individual’s history to develop responses. Sometimes the bot completes the
booking. For more complicated requests, Claire will pass the customer off to a
human agent. Still, the bot doesn't exit the process.
"We free the agents from their most repetitive tasks," said
30SecondsToFly co-founder Felicia Schneiderhan. "Then, when the agents give
assistance, we augment them with all the things the AI has learned about the
traveler. We give them 360 vision. And with that they can provide a higher
quality of service, and they can provide it in a shorter amount of time, as
well."
In the leisure space, American Express Travel uses the
AI-powered tool Mezi, which it acquired last year, to power the AskAmex feature
of its mobile app.
"It's meant to be complementary," said Sangeeta Naik, the
company's global head of strategic partnerships and marketing. "We also try
hard to help our travel consultants understand what AI can do to help us."
Smaller agencies will soon have easier access to AI-powered
assistance, as well. Amadeus has launched its Amadeus for Developers program,
which it says is the first initiative in the travel industry to make AI
capabilities available to independent developers via open application program
interfaces (APIs).
"These APIs will allow developers to build solutions that
can predict travel intent, traveler behavior and flight delays, among others,
without needing any prior background in AI or data," Amadeus said.
___
Rebecca Tobin contributed to this report.