How Artificial Intelligence Helps Tourism
The world has been crippled by the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. The travel industry, being no exception, was among the first to be affected by the pandemic. With lockdowns implemented by governments and the international border closed by every country, tourism has come to a standstill. People are reminiscing about the good days of travel. Airlines, travel firms, and the entire tourism sector is facing an enormous challenge to come back to the normal routine. For the first time in history, around 90% of the world population faces severe travel restrictions.
An estimate of 25 million aviation jobs and 100 million at travel and tourism are at a risk. The potential loss is huge and approximately between five and seven years’ worth of the industry’s growth. The share prices for airlines have fallen drastically since the outbreak of the pandemic and may continue if corrective actions are not taken. Travelers need to feel safe before they begin traveling again.
The tourism industry has to and will be back, as many livelihoods and economies depend on it. More than 10% of the global workforce is employed by the tourism industry. From farmers who supply to hotels with their produces to drivers who transport tourists between destinations, millions of people rely on income generated by travelers. However, the way we travel will face an enormous makeover.
The industry must undergo various changes that will help them in recovering during this new normal and meeting the changed sentiments of the travelers. Technology is set to become the biggest backbone for travel and tourism companies in the post-COVID world to ensure an enhanced customer experience. Companies will explore solutions that allow travelers to maintain social distancing norms while providing a high level of service and personalized customer experience. Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play a significant role in helping the industry to return to the new normal. AI will play a significant role in uplifting the tourism sector.
Route Optimization
Currently, various flight routes have a layover or a connecting flight in between where travelers have to stay for a time being and go through a security check-in process again. The travelers like to avoid connecting flights with a layover and prefer direct flights to their destinations. Airline companies should use various optimization algorithms such as using Linear Programming using Data Science and AIML to determine the optimal air traffic route. This can help the airline industry to run direct flights instead of connecting flights with a layover. This optimization can help the travelers to return to book flights as it reduces the overall risks and brings added advantages for the airline company, such as lower fuel consumption as flights will be reaching the destination directly. The overall cost will be reduced as fewer logistics will be needed as the flights are direct and layovers are less required. This also adds to the convenience of the customer.
Contactless Screening
The most immediate and visible change in the travel industry will be a shift to touchless travel from the airport to hotel check-in. Even though strict cleaning protocols like temperature monitoring, sanitization and disinfection exist, the exchange of travel documents, touching physical surfaces during check-in, security routines and boarding the aeroplane can pose a significant risk of infection, to both the travelers and the staff. Health and hygiene will become an important criterion. From a visa application center to the aeroplane, to sightseeing at a destination, people would look for an assurance that all touchpoints have adopted health and hygiene standards.
Automation will become the new norm across the entire travel industry, with an already widely accepted solution used for identity verification is biometrics which requires physical fingerprint and hand scanners. As these biometric scanners are out of the context, touchless options like a contactless fingerprint, iris and face recognition will gain prominence. Technologies like Artificial intelligence can be used for touchless data-entry, touchless document scanning and voice commands.
Industry experts say that red hot technologies like Data Science and Artificial Intelligence technology will play a significant role in the revival of the travel sector, with electronic passports and IDs, boarding passes, medical screening and robot cleaners helping to limit the contact with people.
Currently, the screening is manual. AI techniques can be used to screen passengers for health risks, smuggling, travel history, etc.
The applications of Artificial Intelligence in the travel and tourism industry is not limited. AI-powered thermal scanners can be used to determine fever or any other symptoms of the coronavirus. Face detection of the passengers is also possible. One can even get to know the travel history of a passenger. AI plays a significant role in creating a safer world for tourism post the pandemic.
