Hospitality Net: Will AI Become the New UI in Travel?
Leah Rankin, Chief Product Officer at SiteMinder
SiteMinder's research indicates that more than 50% of today's travellers are likely to use AI to generate accommodation recommendations – growing to over 85% among travellers from Asia.
They're big numbers, destined to rise, and are the drivers behind our partnerships with the industry's leading chatbots, price comparison and other digital marketing tools to open up the full direct booking opportunity for hoteliers. However, is this openness to AI destined to replace hotel websites or OTAs, or change anything fundamental about the internet's structure? At least in the near future, I don't believe so. The most successful travel brands have spent years understanding their users' needs and preferences – and learning how to influence those at every stage of the travel journey, through a myriad of UI choices.Whether it be via incorporating AI travel assistants, or using AI to automate a hotel's workflows and provide actionable intelligence, there's a collective readiness for AI to improve every digital moment. But speed-to-market is very different to value-to-market. I believe AI's true power lies in enabling businesses to drive meaningful innovations from the inside out, so they can be smarter and more efficient in their approaches to revenue management and operations.
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