Experts map out the datadriven future of travel

The Travel Tech stage hosted a packed panel discussion on ‘The Main Trends Impacting Travel in 2023 and Beyond’, yesterday. Experts discussed intelligent retailing, challenges and opportunities in the industry, future investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and sustainability.

The session started by highlighting how the pandemic has transformed the travel industry on all levels, driven by customers’ expectations, technology developments, challenges raised by the economy and industry dynamics. Today, data plays a key role in providing better customer engagement, which manifests in enhanced pre-travel experiences. Customers are also increasingly looking for flexibility and want to know how they will be accommodated in case of disruptions.

Panelist Dean Wicks, Chief Flights Officer (CFO), Wego, said that when people search for flights, they get a multitude of options. But what they are really looking for is affordable flights and flexible time choices. “There is a need to use data to do this intelligently, get rid of the clutter and provide customers with an enhanced experience.”

On the other hand, panellist Andy Finkelstein, SVP – Global Agency Sales & Delivery at Sabre, stressed that there are certain data privacy and sovereignty challenges that the industry needs to tackle.

He said: “The opportunity lies in not just how one provider uses data. The industry needs to put a mechanism in place through which data can be shared across an ecosystem of providers. For example, in the case of a flight disruption, how will a hotelier accommodate the traveller, or what changes can the ground transportation team offer? All this can lead to a hassle-free experience that often leaves travellers today scrambling to make alternate arrangements. Being intentional about it and bringing it together in one place will lead to more insightful decision-making.”

Wicks added that the ecosystem should not just be exclusive to airlines, as the right data platform could offer curated flight options and then move on to recommending hotel options, ground transportation or tours and activities.

“Wego has over 30 million app downloads in the Middle East. We take data from our users to understand customer behaviour. We look at trends, such as if they are looking to purchase insurance or hotels, which helps us understand if and when we can cross-sell. Not every single journey is the same, but we utilise massive amounts of data, machine learning and AI to bring together a product that is personalised.”

Speaker Jason Hooper, Head of Digital Solutions at Dnata, added that AI and machine learning are helping complement the data around customer profiles, and going forward, this is an important investment area for the company. “We have a certain level of AI and machine learning in place today in our online tools that make recommendations based on what other travellers are doing. We have also invested in analytics and a data platform that will assist in predicting future trends and risks.”

Wicks concluded: “We encourage all our employees to be actively involved in the latest technologies, such as ChatGPT. We are also working on plugins for our customer service and are looking at how we can utilise AI tools in every aspect of what we do.

“We are looking at how we can talk to our customers in multiple languages and provide them with accurate responses. Moreover, our content team has been able to produce 10 times the amount of volume compared to what they produced prior to the use of AI. We also have a team of AI engineers who are finding ways to accelerate the growth of everything we do through AI and machine learning. We are seeing massive results and return from it and are working towards doing much more with it.”