The modern-day marketing has undoubtedly led to a tremendous transformation in the current era wherein, the methodologies and approach have showcased substantial changes. Gone are the days where the industries used traditional methods of marketing to reach their target customers and promote their services. However, considering the current trend, it’s the Artificial Intelligence [AI] which has taken over the economy. The travel industry being the front runner in e-commerce trade has also been impacted to a great extent.
Let us look at impact Areas
Marketing: Boon or poking too much?
The travel industry is ensuring the customer retention by the means of effective marketing and communication channels. What’s new in the area is experimenting with the technology. Yes, the travel marketing has become technology driven, wherein, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science are playing their fundamental role. Marketing is focusing extensively on personalisation to make certain of the fact that the marketers provide the customers with real-time experiences. Let’s take a look below on few of the instances of successful embedment of Artificial Intelligence in the marketing:
- Providing Essential Information to International Travellers: No doubt, that, the passengers traveling for the first time to an international destination are in a dilemma and suffer uneasiness. Nevertheless, the issues have come to an end. The travel marketers keep their passengers informed about the different facets of the trip like – weather, currency rates, travel time, must visit locations, food, and so on. The travellers now, feel much secure and informed right before landing to their destination.
- Make travel easy by suggestions: One of the most useful aspects of travel marketing is direct messaging of essential information. The travel marketers are ensuring that their customers are free from stress and provide them with the information on local hotels available in the destination. Similarly, the travellers are receiving direct messages for information on rental cars.
- Notifications on Amendments & Flight Changes: What if you’ve been rushing through to the airport to catch the flight and finally at your arrival at the airport, you come to know that it’s already running on a 2 hours delay? Will that be frustrating? Indeed. However, now, the time has finally arrived wherein, a traveller can avoid such a waste of time. With the successful execution of Artificial Intelligence, the travellers now receive live updates of their flight on their mobile phones.
The above-exemplified instances were a glimpse to the effect that Artificial Intelligence is laying over the customers.
Impact on Empowering Customer Servicing: Are customers being taken care of or bugged too much?
Irrespective of the sector, it is imperative for the organisations to know their customers. I.e. are they tech Savvy? Or Tech Ignorant? With right set of tools, Travel Business can deliver excellent services driven by Artificial Intelligence, but, it is substantial to establish a personal connection with their customers. Applying a bit of personalisation to the customer service is what will make the customers feel like a king. Take a look at few considerations which could result in better customer retention:
- Accurate and Precise, Faster response time: We assume that with Automation backed by AI, Travel Business will be able to server customers faster without any manual intervention e.g. sending a Ticket copy, Cancellation, Searching for indicative pricing for Travel planning, record keeping etc.
- Individual and Personal Response: There are large organisations or even hotels, who possess a robot receptionist. Thus, when customer is on call, it is the robot which response. It is essential to understand the fact that not every time, the customer will enjoy talking to a robot though their might be situations where Automation will make the response accurate and fast. . Thus, responding to the customer service desk individually will ensure a better connection with travellers.
- Building Relationship, Socially aware: Being welcomed by the robot is not as effective as being done by a person. The robots will always lack a skill of empathy and sense of social awareness wherein, It may fails to understand the mood of customer and how tired he may be. An individual recognise and initiate a response in accordance with what the situation demands.
- Proactive Engagement: It might look awkward for a back office to call every few hours and ask for the desired services but an AI powered robot can do so riding on the power of data and can connect to customer on behalf of SME Travel Business via notifications, in app messages, chatbot etc. and pass on the meaningful message for fulfilment.
Let us also look at how is Data ensuring better conversions using AI?
As mentioned above, the travel trade is greatly impacted upon by the extensive use of Data Science. In the era of technological advancement, data is playing a massive role in the travel industry to strategize their approach towards customer engagement further. The data extraction is ensuring the acquirement of insights through various modes – Social Media, Website Clicks, etc. Thus, the travel marketers are identifying the preferences of their target customers, which in turn, is helping them to better strategies their marketing methodologies.
The future of Artificial Intelligence in Travel Trade is exceptionally high with the tremendous growth prospects. The only aspect which could not be ignored is a sense of personalisation.
To quickly summarize, AI has reduced and automated a lot of Clerical and Manual work at the Agency level, however from the SME Business perspective, the Winning Proposition is Personalization with Attention. With wise usage of AI, SME business can also take the leap and be on the same level as tech advanced OTA and Bigger Business.
- Reducing the repeated effort of calling, recording personal preferences and choices.
- Auto Alerts for Travelers on Flights Timings, Weather, Schedule Changes including any political or health information.
- Keep international travelers up-to date with live information about weather, currency and local news.
- Suggestions – for Dining or Short Term Vehicle Hiring for local commute, Shopping etc. Travel Agency are able to deliver destination details and suggestions on a single tap.
We believe that even smaller agencies can use AI technology to delight their customers with the above value adds and use of right tools.
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