To AI, or not to AI?
Hardly a day goes by without the exciting potential / existential threat (delete as appropriate) of artificial intelligence being debated across the news and social media. If it isn’t Rishi and Elon’s recent tech bro love-in, it’s the subject of panel discussions at World Travel Market or the ABTA Convention.
There’s no doubt that generative AI – software which scrapes existing online resources to create answers to queries posted by users in a matter of seconds – opens vistas of opportunity for travel marketers and agents that range from content optimisation to personalised email comms. Lured by the siren call of reduced marketing costs, readers might already be under pressure from their bosses to start using it. But before wondering whether they could begin using AI, travel marketers need to think about whether they should.
As marketers ourselves – whose careers have coincided with travel marketing’s online revolution – we’re no strangers to adapting to and optimising new technologies, and could use that accumulated wisdom to give you our response to that question. However, we thought that we’d ask an AI engine itself, in this case ChatGPT, for five reasons why travel marketers should use it. Here’s what it told us:
Personalisation: AI can analyse vast amounts of data, such as user preferences, browsing history, and demographic information, to create highly personalised and targeted communications – which can in turn increase engagement and loyalty and ultimately convert to bookings.
Content generation: AI can generate high-quality content for travel websites, blogs, newsletters and social media, saving agents time and effort in content creation.
Data analysis: AI can quickly analyse customer feedback, reviews, and social media sentiment to gauge customer satisfaction, identify areas for improvement and respond to issues in real-time.
Tactical pricing: AI algorithms can adjust prices in real time based on demand, competitor pricing and time capacity. This ensures tactical marketing remains competitive.
Recommendations and upselling: AI can suggest additional products or services based on customer preferences and thus drive upsell potential.
So, there you have it – straight from the AI’s mouth, so to speak. Enhancing, streamlining and optimising your marketing comms. What’s not to like?
That’s true, but as with any emerging and rapidly evolving technology the proverb that ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ applies. The reliance of AI on existing online resources means that its output is by no means infallible, and still needs to be fact checked by a human. In SEO terms, the greater emphasis that Google is giving to author authority - which mandates that OTAs produce content crafted by creators who have actual experience and expertise in the travel domain - means that content produced using AI could easily fall foul of its Expertise, Experience, Authority, Trust (EEAT) guidelines and be penalised as a result. Finally, there are legitimate concerns related to privacy, bias, data security and GDPR of which travel marketers need to be aware to ensure their use of AI stays within legal boundaries. Not doing so could land you in hot water with regulators and customers – undoing whatever benefits you think you’ve gained by using it in the first place.
So before jumping in to using AI because it’s the ‘shiny new toy’ and ‘everyone else is, so we should too’, keep in mind the suggestion made by Dr Shorful Islam as quoted by Amanda Cromhout in her book ‘Blind Loyalty’: don’t think of AI as ‘artificial intelligence’, but as ‘augmented intelligence’. It's a tool that invites travel agents and marketers to layer your intuition, skills, experience and knowledge over the reams of data that the technology can quickly and easily crunch - combining them to turbocharge the engine of your marketing and improve its speed, accuracy and efficiency.
But as the driver, you should always keep your hand on the wheel.
This article was originally published as part of a regular monthly Llama column on travel marketing in TTG.
