Generative AI in travel – weighing the concerns versus the promise

Data security and a lack of expertise around generative artificial intelligence are hampering the implementation of the technology.

A new report from Amadeus revealed 35% of industry experts viewed data security as a barrier, 34% highlighted the lack of expertise in the field of generative AI and 33% felt data quality and inadequate technology infrastructure would hamper its roll out.

Asked specifically about the technology infrastructure needed to reap the benefits of generative AI, 44% of respondents believed their organization needs work while 12% said “significant” work will be required before they can begin to experiment.

Similarly, when it came to their internal data set up, 43% said it needed work to benefit from generative AI and 10% said “significant” work would be required.

The Navigating the Future report, which interviewed more than 300 industry executives, revealed that return on investment and lack of use cases were a further concern for 30% of respondents.

Despite the barriers, 41% of respondents said they already have budgets in place to implement the technology. In addition, 46% cited it as a “top priority” for internal use in the coming year ahead of other technologies including data management and cloud architecture.

Next gen travel tech

Unsurprisingly, generative artificial intelligence was also a key theme at WiT Singapore this week where travel experts provided views on the most exciting applications of next generation travel technology.

While the audience chose the ability of generative AI to boost recommendations in travel as most exciting in a poll, panelists opted for more practical applications. 

Mike McGearty, co-founder and CEO of mobility platform Meili, felt large language models were the most exciting application in travel and said the organization is investing in them.

For Timothy O’Neill-Dunne of T2Impact, an aviation consulting firm, the power of AI to synthesize the volumes of information out there “was the biggest skill that’s immediate. It’s now.” Meanwhile, Christian Watts, founder and CEO of Magpie, a content management platform for tours and activities, somewhat agreed and said personal agents synthesizing the data is where things are heading.

Timothy Hughes, vice president of corporate development at online travel agency Agoda, said usage in back-end development tools is where the Asian online travel agency is seeing “the immediate gains.”

“The hope is [recommendations] but I think there are still a lot of stories that we haven’t figured out in how to actually make a machine give good recommendations,” he said.

A second poll at the event centered on the “biggest promise” of next generation technology, with most of the audience opting for more reliable product offerings or enabling more people to travel.

“I hope it’s more reliable product offerings where we actually delight the customer, make it more seamless, etc.,” McGearty said.

Hughes flagged cost savings and productivity as the biggest promise of AI in travel. He also highlighted supplier-distributor alignment as a big benefit to the industry that the technology could bring.

“All those break points that we see between distribution technology and supplier technology we can hopefully see get healed by AI.”