Experts call for better tech in the face of increased disruptions from climate change crisis

As climate change becomes more severe, so will travel disruptions.  That was the sentiment at Phocuswright, where several travel leaders took to the Center Stage to discuss how to deal with this.  While the world works towards net zero goals that address climate change itself, technology could help minimize weather disruptions in the interim.

 Jeffrey Katz, founder and CEO of Journera, said: “Everyone of us is on a journey and it’s the traveler today that has to connect all the dots of that when things go wrong.  But it’s technology that should be connecting these dots without the traveler having to do anything.  Then that technology should present the situation to the travel brand.  The brand can then step in, and offer alternative arrangements to the traveler – generating less stress for the traveler and more revenue for the brand.  As climate change happens, these disruptions are going to be more frequent and more intense, so this will become more important than ever.”

Theresa Wise, CEO Utaza, and retired CIO of Delta Airlines added: “I’m drawn to the real-time real-journey view of the customer, and what technology I can add to it.  I’m particularly interested in what already exists – for example, transaction data, infrastructure, and the logic to tie it all together exists today.  The delivery mechanisms exist – we need technology to bring everything together so that we can have an informed conversation with the customer about their disruption, [instantly finding them] another hotel, or a car waiting, following a disruption.”

Brian Davis is SVP and CMO of Sun Country Airlines. Every year, the carrier flies 4.5 million passengers between Minneapolis and the Caribbean – two regions that are frequently and increasingly hit by extreme weather conditions.  He said: “One of the defining characteristics of our airline is the infrequent traveler – those that travel once per year.  So our ability to form relationships and shape behavior is limited.  However, we are really excited about our new IROPS technology.  We’ve been rebuilding our tech stack [to cope with such a volatile operating landscape], and we’re putting these tools right into travelers’ hands, so that we can directly help them when disruptions happen.”

Paul Weaver, VP global digital product design at Hyatt thinks that disruption management is a great use case for AI.  “We’re working on integrating AI into our products and websites, leaning heavily into digital storytelling, in a way that’s scalable and cost-effective.  But we’ve got to balance AI with the needs of the typical end-user – we’re a hotel, so our customers want a degree of care and humanity.  Where Gen AI can really help is by enabling us to offer an enhanced experience to our customers, particularly during disruptions [such as helping the travel industry to easily re-accommodate travellers in the event of a disruption].”