Machine Learning and Data Analytics in the Travel Industry

With the changing times, machine learning, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) are getting deeper into the roots and nodes of our country’s travel and tourism industry.

These days, people use mobile applications and websites to do everything from hotel bookings to flight check-ins to tracking flights and trains. Thus, the companies and firms related to travel app development are reaping the benefits from the same.

The evolution of computer science has led to innovative technology like artificial intelligence, which is further easing out a man’s life by solving many humanized problems easily and speedily.

With more and more countries working on data privacy issues and abiding by all the laws linked to the same, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning appear to be the future of the tourism industry.

Visitors and individuals tend to give in for unique and personalized experiences, and these technologies will help the hospitality industry increase their gains.

Machine Learning (ML)

Machine learning is related to artificial intelligence. It refers to the study of algorithms and data science. This algorithm learns from data automatically and can implement that analysis without requiring any human intrusion.

Machine learning has various divisions, and there are numerous ways to use them. Conventional ML solutions use predictive analytics, sentiment analysis, and statistical analysis to find patterns and study the available large amounts of data to extract hidden information and insights.

Various recommendation engines like Netflix and Youtube are incorporated with AI and ML only to provide filtered results to their users.

Data Analytics

Data analytics is the process of inspecting, cleaning, modeling, and converting data to find beneficial information, reaching conclusions, and improving the decision-making operation.

Data analytics concentrates on developing valuable insights and feedback from the obtainable knowledge.

Firms use knowledge analytics to form better-informed and more thoughtful decisions concerning numerous matters and marketing, selling, production, etc. This technology helps an individual gather raw data and bring out useful information from the same.

Advantages of Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in Travel Industry

1. Enhances Customer Experience

Machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and data analytics are storming the travel, tourism, and hospitality sector by giving enormous gains, lovely consumer experience, and relieving the stress of various company owners because of their unique and incredible advantages.

These innovative techniques and technologies provide structured and organized services and improve customers’ travel experience.

These technologies give excellent results by securing data, supporting consumer interaction and engagement, delivering rich and error-free services, and enhancing employee productivity when employed in several hospitality companies.

2. Provides Live Feedback

ML and data analytics help get real-time insights and feedback from the consumer by analyzing and judging consumer reactions by various facial recognition technologies and many other gestures made by a user while interacting with the product or service offered by any hotel, restaurant, or online travel agency.

These technologies help us give importance to intelligent tourism, and they have an incredible impact on users, businesses, companies, individuals, and communities.

They are helping to create an intellectual movement for various travel, tourism, and hospitality companies, and thus, they are making way for new business models and consumer interaction approaches.

Use of intelligent and innovative software with the help of AI help in predicting problems and reaching accurate results. They allow individuals, firms, and agencies to have a flexible approach towards all types of situational and conditional changes. They also provide special discounts and features to their loyal customers.

3. Promotes Growth

AI promotes the growth of the hospitality sector by helping in enhancing the consumer experience with the services and facilities provided by the firm or company. They give an error-free and a better understanding to them by offering personalization to a greater extent to their visitors.

Personalization is the key to a good experience in the tourism and hospitality sector. It helps increase revenue and profits, driving and attracting more visitors by the unique experience they might get because of the use of more and more technology.

The travel, tourism, and hospitality sector can rely on technology that can understand, analyze and react to human needs, requirements and actions. Hence, AI promotes excellent consumer experience and interaction, strengthens operational effectiveness, and enhances well-being.

4. Helps in Avoiding the Rush and Queues

These days, with the help of various travel booking websites, people can check out the train tickets, flight fare, and hotel prices in the comfort of their own home without making any extra effort to go out. These sites and apps also offer services like dynamic pricing and comparison filters.

AI and ML also help improve the consumer experience and relieve the stress of first-time visitors because they tend to respond to consumer needs and requirements instantly and provide them all the information at once within just a few minutes.

5. Provides Great Personalisation

The key to providing a superior guest experience in the hospitality sector is the personalization that the hotel staff can offer their customers. Personalization that the online travel booking websites can give them by various features like filters and search bar is a perfect example.

AI and ML solve this problem very quickly as they offer much more customization than the human staff can because these technologies have many in-built sensors and recognition technologies.

If they are told once about the needs and requirements of any guest, they can remember these details forever.

For example, they will never miss to give them a hot towel or cold towel according to their registered need or provide them with vegetarian or non-vegetarian food as per their mentions before.

Disadvantages of Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in Travel Industry

1. Avoidance of Human Touch

Due to the installation of various machines, robots, and technologies, visitors and travelers tend to miss the human touch in their tours.

They might not feel any connection with the place they are visiting because of that missing human touch and lack of feelings because these technologies don’t have feelings and are heartless.

2. Increased Risk of Hackers

While using such technologies, there is always a risk of introducing some virus into your system. Also, the risk of hackers is increased because they can easily break into the software and use the private and personal data on such servers and host websites.

Such people may fabricate the information and data on these websites and in these systems and may lead to further miscommunication and misunderstandings with their clients.

People and hackers have many ways and improvised techniques for hacking and breaking into the host systems of such companies and gaining access to all the essential and personal information. Hence, such technologies may expose the company to a lot of risk of theft of critical data.

3. Hiked Unemployment Rate

Unemployment is one of the most significant impacts that the artificial intelligence and robotics sectors create in this industry.

With these technologies and other software systems replacing the human staff, websites taking the place of travel agencies, online check-ins, etc., many individuals are losing their jobs.

Even the creation of jobs in this industry has also reduced because of this massive transition of the consumers.

4. Expensive Technology

A company or firm that might be in its initial stage will not afford such expensive technologies and massive systems. All these machines and software systems are costly and might be complicated to use, and the company might have to hire individuals to control them and keep a check on them. Individuals will have to make a considerable investment to set up all this in their hotel, travel agency, or restaurant.

5. AI Stupidity and Content Misinterpretation

AI is in its initial years and, thus, in the early stage. It might have made fantastic progress and development overall, but still, there is much more left to do.

There is even a term called ‘AI Stupidity,’ which considers the situations where AI and robots supported with this technology cannot take an efficient decision or come to a perfect conclusion like humans.

Sometimes, they fail to use existing data and resources or might not register some information that may be very important from the human point of view.

6. Privacy Concerns

The data and information that has been collected from the visitors by the AI sensors and recognition powers might be used for various other purposes, which will always raise a concern of data privacy in the minds of the individuals visiting that hotel or using that service.

Firms linked to the hospitality sector may face some difficulties and problems to attract consumers to give their data to such technologies because many individuals are very private with their personal information so, they might not just give in.

Also, the hotels and restaurants will have to follow all the rules related to privacy and ensure the ethical and correct use of consumer data.