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Travel marketers have been ahead of the other industries for years with the personalized experiences that theyve offered to their customers.

Whether it is airlines relying on their loyalty schemes to offer incentives and upgrades most likely to appeal to certain flyers, or the use of questionnaires by hotels to customize the in-room arrival experience with amenities or snacks, the travel industry generally has been a leader in using personalization to deliver a better more personal journey, while at the same time increasing loyalty and customer lifetime value.

As artificial intelligence technologies continue to advance in sophistication and adoption, they will hyper-charge personalization in the travel industry. This is because AI is able to analyse and process vast amounts of data, and to infer connections or suggestions that otherwise may not be obvious. To make travel plans, consumers historically relied on independent travel agents and their knowledge.

As connectivity became more accessible and widespread globally over the past 20 years, many travelers do their own research to build itineraries. This is a fertile area where the use of AI in the future will be able to assist in formulating and assembling travel packages that will appeal best to particular customers.

Were currently only at the early stages of AI and seeing very limited use cases, especially as it relates to recommendations and travel planning. Initial uses of AI for personalization in travel have tended to focus on improving online customer experience and also chat bots for more contextual customer service.

In the future, however, AI will have the potential to transform travel as it is able to understand a wider range of variables and personal preferences that go into trip planning. The technology will be able to ingest more information that would ever be humanly possible to provide more relevant recommendations and truly optimize the entire process for consumers across travel companies and brands.

A traveler could select their preferences for budget, type of travel, timing, airlines or hotels where they will earn loyalty points and much more and be served a customized travel experience that maybe wouldnt have ever crossed their or an agents mind. Connections on a journey are often difficult to plan, whether they be flight connections, adding railway or ferry connections, and stop over locations and accommodation.

Historically, experienced travel agents relied on their own experience and knowledge to arrange such itineraries. More recently, consumer online searches are used increasingly to arrange the overall trip travel plan. In the future, machine learning and AI will become integral to travel planning due to the ability to review and analyse massive amounts of data in real time, and then present the best matches to perceived personal and unique needs of individual travelers.

However, there is an important role that consent will play in this AI-driven recommendation evolution. To be effective, personalization is ultimately based on the perceived personal preferences of a consumer. As the travel industry incorporates the use of AI more and more into their technology solutions, the question that arises is whether, and to what extent, consumers are asked to consent to the gathering and use of personal data.

We have become increasing used to consent management systems on web sites, which request user consent to cookies of various categories. However, consent management in the travel industry for AI based systems is a rather novel area.

To start with it is of the nature of AI that a consumer may be induced to provide personal information (e.g., hotel room preferences) without necessarily understanding the fact that there is AI involved, or the broader use that may be put to his or her personal information. There is also the possibility that a consumer may not have a direct relationship to the system or entity that is collecting or processing his or her information using AI.

It should be best practice in the industry to disclose what personal information is being collected, how that information will be used, and seeking consent to that activity.

Hopefully as the travel industry moves to more broadly embrace AI in the coming years due regard will be given to ethics and informed user consent, to ensure that the industry benefits of AI-based personalization are balanced with the interests of privacy and the individual.

The industry will be best served by AI if it is used ethically and with user consent, and to avoid legislative scrutiny and unnecessary regulation. We are all conscious of what could go wrong

About the author...

Simon Yencken is the CEO and co-founder of Fanplayr.

See the original post:
The most informed travel agents: Artificial intelligence and consent - PhocusWire