ChatGPT: Opportunity or threat for travel?

If in technology and innovation circles 2021 was the year for crypto and 2022 was the year of the metaverse, then 2023 will be remembered as the year of ChatGPT for certain. But is this an opportunity or a threat for the travel space?

To find out we spoke with six different travel technology experts for their opinion on where ChatGPT could take us in the coming years.

Oana Savu, Chief Strategy Officer at travel connectivity technology specialists Dohop sees the game-changing potential for travel: “What ChatGPT highlights and reminds us of most is that technology continues to develop faster and faster and that natural language processing, machine learning technologies, and AI are being adopted increasingly and will have massive impacts in many industries, including travel. Together they will bring about a more convenient and integrated multi-modal approach to travel planning – as well as offer personalised travel recommendations based on the traveler profile, history and preferences. Consequently, this could also impact and increase travel demand as more people might be willing to travel more often.”

Rob Goldsmith, Chief Operating Officer of InterLnkd, a data driven technology solution that enables airlines and OTAs to cross sell fashion, beauty and retail products, feels that access to data is the biggest challenge for ChatGPT to become impactful in travel: “AI has been in play in the shopping space for many years, just think about how effortless Amazon is at making almost frighteningly accurate predictions about what you´ll want and when. What’s the magic sauce there? All the data they hold on your past shopping and searches. Without access to such data then ChatGPT, while a big step forward in AI, won’t really be able to make personalised suggestions for you: with everyone getting a standardised output. It’s that personalisation and relevance that drives conversion from a cross-selling perspective.”

Speaking about investor sentiment for the travel sector Morgann Lesné from travel investment bank Cambon Partners comments: “A few months ago saying you had an AI solution was interesting to potential acquirers of companies, of course – particularly if they were looking to purchase a company to integrate its technology. But it was far from high on the shopping list so to speak, not least in an environment where profitability counts for much more than growth potential. ChatGPT though has captured investors’ attention for sure and I´m certain that travel businesses who can convincingly claim to be doing this in some way will either raise easily or be acquired even if they are not profitable yet. Everyone is looking for that first mover advantage.”

Meanwhile, though Mark Ross-Smith from loyalty technology provider StatusMatch doesn’t feel that ChatGPT is going to impact the frequent flyer loyalty status space just yet: “Many of the perks of being a status holding frequent flyer member of an airline are access to a lot of information and services that aren’t available online easily, often sitting behind password protected members areas or more simply ‘just known to insiders’ orally. There’s also the human touch of cabin crew who recognize you and bring you your favourite drink and so on.  I’d like to see artificial intelligence take all that on in the next few years, as I don’t think it can – in fact right now ChatGPT is only based on data available up until 2021 so it might be recommending lounges that are closed or even airlines that are long since not flying.”

However, Janis Dzenis, Head of PR for the subscription-focused online metasearch WayAway, shares how his business is already benefiting from the use of AI tools like ChatGPT: “In some small ways this is already a reality for us in our business. For example we have found that ChatGPT can produce images for use in marketing campaigns that not only saves us the cost of a graphic designer, but also creates images that get significantly higher click-thru volumes – and I mean multiples higher, not just a modest 20% increase (which before we’d have considered great!). Looking to the future we plan to use ChatGPT and similar tools to take over aspects of our customer support that right now are done by humans, freeing up the humans to focus on tasks that only they can do.”

Emilie Dumont, CEO of B2B travel technology provider Digitrips – who, amongst several other brands, owns France’s leading B2B OTA, Misterfly – sees huge potential in the longer term, with some potential for as soon as the coming year but also some limitations: “For sure we are witnessing the birth of a new way of searching for information, processing it and getting an answer: in ten years we’ll probably wonder how we ever organized anything before ‘AI powered search’ existed, like anyone born before 1980 talks about the pre-internet era. Will that be ChatGPT or another company or concept? The winner will probably be the one who has the highest financial firepower to invest quickly! When it comes to travel inspiration, I am almost convinced that in the coming year some players will be able to develop ‘learning / customised’ AI for their own customers to give quite accurate and detailed personalised recommendations that are compelling. Equally, I see customer support potential for ChatGPT and similar AI evolutions, answering all the but the most tricky questions – and there’s probably potential uses that we can’t even imagine yet (maybe AI will tell us the uses!). Nonetheless, as it stands today ChatGPT can’t make accurate travel recommendations, not least because it depends on data from up to 2021 only. Tourism is a fast-changing world: airlines close routes, companies go bankrupt, destinations become war zones, and more overnight – and pricing changes minute by minute often. This will however all eventually be doable for ChatGPT or whatever the next big AI thing is. The question is when?”

Finally James Jin, CTO of global accommodation distribution DidaTravel, sees this as a watershed moment for that other industries are perhaps better prepared for, leaving travel open to even bigger changes: “A bit like when search engines first came along, whoever controls access to the information super highways that ChatGPT and its competitors will create will be able to monetise them and we´ll quickly see adverts appearing inside the experience. In that respect a whole new industry will spring up dedicated to helping people gamify the algorithms to ensure that their brands organically don’t lose out – very similar to search engine optimization. Perhaps called ‘ChatGPT optimization’ to give it a name! No doubt we´ll see legislation, regulation, consumer watchdogs and more coming into effect very quickly too. Whilst it raises many questions that are unanswered, those who ignore this technology could find themselves falling behind, slowly at first but then quicker and quicker before it becomes too late to catch-up. Travel will be no different and because technologically it has always lagged behind a bit, it could be ripe for even more of a shakeup than other sectors who perhaps saw this coming – just look at how much better the FMCG retailing space has been at doing personalization compared to travel.”