Maybe in the future, customers in the travel industry will require a reliable resource to consult before deciding on a decision, as opposed to “drowning” in the sea of information as they do now when using Google.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has had a major impact on the tourism industry. However, this tool still needs more improvement to be able to plan a complete trip.
According to The New York Times, many people expect AI to help them create travel plans through suggestions or requests made.
Mr Oded Battat, General Manager at Traveland, asked ChatGPT to create trips for tourists visiting Tuscany. As a result, he received a list of 14 activities, including tours of the winery and museum.
“I know all these places,” Mr Battat said. In addition, this director also affirmed that ChatGPT supports him quite well in sending emails to customers.
AI assistants meet 70-80 per cent of business owners’ expectations
The travel industry is constantly changing, especially with the advent of AI. Currently, travellers can “chat” with chatbot tools and share information about destinations, interests, and departure times. The system will send back a personalised travel itinerary with vivid descriptions.
Tourist offices can ask ChatGPT to write marketing content, send emails to customers, and create social media posts. Many airlines, hotels and car rental companies have applied this tool to chatbots on their websites.
Chad Burt, co-president of OutsideAgents, said some are worried that travel advisors will have to shut down as systems like ChatGPT improve.
However, Mr Chad Burt said that “every new technology is a tool that needs to be applied”. Recently, he also held a seminar to share how to take advantage of technology features in the work process.
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Mr Burt used ChatGPT to create 100 travel itineraries. The results met 70-80 per cent of his expectations. However, companies need to re-examine and continue to improve further to come up with better end results.
Expedia, one of the world’s largest online travel agencies, is already using AI. The company has many years of experience in personalising itineraries and communicating with customers through virtual advisors, said Peter Kern, CEO of Expedia. However, ChatGPT is still an “important new step”.
Backlog restrictions to the travel industry
However, AI chatbot tools also have limitations. With ChatGPT, the information base of this technology is limited to 2021. Therefore, this tool will be unable to update data that changes over time such as airline schedules and weather condition details.
Besides, this software is also unstable in determining the reliability of the source. As a result, some AI chatbot responses may result in misleading content.
OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT, also warns that its software can sometimes produce “false content”.
Mr Jeff Low, CEO of Stash Hotels Rewards, worries about the impact of AI on the accommodation industry. Hotels are likely to cut jobs more with the help of artificial intelligence.
In addition, according to Mr Low, unethical companies can use software like ChatGPT to devalue customer reviews on travel websites. This comes from the fact that AI tools can automatically write out positive or negative review posts.
ChatGPT does not satisfy travellers
ChatGPT is useful for the tourism industry, but it falls short of travellers’ expectations.
Marissa’s family (six members), after using the schedule provided by ChatGPT to travel to Thailand, evaluated the destinations suggested by ChatGPT simply for them to visit the city, not to go into the experience, culture, the goals they set in the first place. Therefore, ChatGPT is not connected with people.
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Meanwhile, the hotel staff is different. Marissa appreciated this person’s enthusiasm and understanding. “He has kids so he understands that sightseeing isn’t always fun for the kids. He knows they won’t sit idly by and that guests can be exhausted from the heat.”
“He knew where we should go to eat, what attractions to visit, and which hawkers we should visit for a taste of Malaysia. He showed us the best banana leaf restaurant in the world in Kuala Lumpur and advised us to avoid rush hour traffic jams.”
Marissa sees ChatGPT as not a “magnanimous generous” tool. ChatGPT’s AI can quickly suggest travel itineraries, but it’s a bland experience and lacks depth. “Unless you’re the type of person who likes to ‘check-in’ all the places, we need personalised experiences to bring people closer together.”
In Vietnam, many people have tried using ChatGPT to suggest travel schedules and received unexpected results. A guest from Hanoi said that he tried to use ChatGPT to create a schedule for Dalat for three days and two nights and the result was not reasonable.
Chat GPT only searches for famous places in Da Lat and put them together, not caring about the distance between those places or sharing the same route for convenient transportation. ChatGPT’s AI also does not update emerging places, even suggesting tourists go to the waterfall at five pm.
ChatGPT’s AI is not fully “mature” at the moment
GPT is still a new application anyway, and travel information is endless with changes happening almost daily. So if you use it instead to find out, and give some suggestions for reference, you should not put too much hope on the results or need to check with Google again with the suggested results.
Wait until the AI has full knowledge and experience (loaded with more data), and more intelligence (edited code, algorithms), then surely the returned results will be better than now.
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