Big Data: Demarcation and its impact on the Travel Industry
Travel & tourism industry has been deliberated as one of the world’s largest industries that stake a major part in global economic contribution including direct and indirect contribution. Several technological advancements have been taking place in the tourism industry through which factors such as market research, customer experience and strategic marketing could be done effectively. Through the use of Big Data tourism industry could achieve major technological advancements which are helping businesses in the industry to cultivate.
Artificial intelligence can be defined as, technologies designed to execute tasks without any human interference. Through the help of AI, complex errands could be competently carried out speedily without any assistance. Use of AI in the travel industry has been providing good results, by way of enhancing customer assistance, quicker response time and quick services.
Operation of AI & Big Data has enhanced the travel industry to a greater extent. The report will highlight the technological advancements in tourism industry happened over time and how the use of Big Data and AI has benefited the industry. Furthermore, the positive aspects of AI & Big Data in the tourism sector have been mentioned in the report.
The fact is tacit that technology is evolving every day and it is influencing each and every aspect of lives. Technology has parted a prime role in developing many industries in the world; the travel and tourism industry is one of them. Technology has influenced impossible changes in the tourism sector in preceding years, from fantasizing to scheduling, booking, and experiencing technology has worked in a spectacular way to enhance the travel experience. Rendering to the figures, more than 50 million people have travelled across many countries as compared to 2014 (iNurture, 2016).
Making reservations for an excursion these days, & reserving an excursion a few years ago are entirely diverse practices. Travel managers at previous times (at the 90s) supposed a system to search for the air ticket prices online which would be far more convenient to the travellers. Since then, technological advancements have been influencing drastic changes in the travel and tourism sector. Technology has enhanced the travel industry in a way that, more wanderers could be reached all around the world and travellers are cognizant and tech-savvy ( Saha, 2018).
Big Data and Artificial intelligence have influenced the tourism sector in a positive way. For instance, airlines can travel patterns of the customers and they can understand the trending places which are in current demand, through this, the airlines could attract more customers with offers and packages. There are several applications and technologies that understand customer needs and suggest the best packages and prices accordingly (Emerj, 2018).
Artificial intelligence – Meaning and its Importance in the Travel Industry
Technology is being advanced day-to-day, which in turn influence the lives of individuals (the way they live). Technological advancements are correspondingly influencing the tourism industry in a positive aspect, due to which tourism sector is also getting enhanced and encouraging people to travel all around the world. Following are some of the technological advancements which also helped the tourism industry to cultivate with time.
- Smartphones: From 1990’s smartphones are getting advanced and smarter, but now, smartphones are considered as a necessity and normal to people. In the year 2003, smartphones existed less than 1 per cent. According to statistics, by 2014 there were more smartphones than the total population on earth. The fact is tacit that smartphones and the internet have advanced the travel and tourism industry to a greater extent.
- WiFi & IoT: The time has come where everything could be done with the help of the internet, such as shopping, consulting and many more. The Internet has provided the ability to access bulk of information within seconds; the use of social media has also helped people to get connected globally.
- Transport: Modes of transport are also getting advanced day-to-day. Earlier, travelling on flights was not common, but these days most of the people prefer flights to commute to different places due to low prices. Transport is one of the prime fragments of the tourism industry; growth in the transport sector is influencing the industry in a positive aspect.
- Health: Technology has played a major role to enhance the healthcare sector; the fact is tacit that nowadays numerous lives are being saved with the help of technology. For instance, microscopic cameras are being used in the surgery for accuracy, 3D printed organic matter etc.
The aforementioned are some of the prime instances that highlight the drastic changes that technology has acquired over time. Apart from these, there are various other things like Artificial intelligence and Big Data analytics which is one of the prime changes that technology has made over time.
Big Data
The enormous sizes of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data which is challenging to be managed in customary database or software are demarcated as Big Data. In Big Data the bulk amounts of data are composed together which are in dissimilar formats and belongs to numerous sources (Kitchin & McArdle, 2016).
The three different formats of Big Data are:
Structured: Comprises prearranged data with a stable scheme.
Semi-Structured: Comprises partly organized data with no stable format.
Unstructured data: Unorganized and unarranged data.
An example of Big Data; El Cortez Hotel is one of the preeminent hotels in Las Vegas that has been using Predictive Analytics in order to shape their pricing strategy. With the help of this tool, the hotel could predict the future by analysing the data of previous trends, customer preferences, and current trends and so on. Predictive Analytics uses data mining technique to analyse the data from vast sources (Predictive Analytics Today, 2018).
Artificial Intelligence
AI is an imperative field of computer science which involved the creation of intelligent machines that can act and react like humans. Machines with AI could perceive the environment and react accordingly; speech recognition, planning, learning the environment, problem-solving are some of the imperative activities done by the AI systems. Machine learning is also an imperative part of AI which does not require any kind of inputs, and it provides sensible outputs by perceiving and learning the environment (Russell & Norvig, 2016).
The influences of technology in travel and tourism sector have been driving extraordinary changes through which tourism is increasing globally. For instance, online booking has impacted a positive change in the tourism industry, people can access the internet and use applications to book hotels, flights, transport services or any other travel essentials (Gretzel et. al., 2015). The Internet is one of the prime technological factors that have influenced the travel and tourism industry; organizations make use of Big Data in order to analyse customer preferences season wise changes and preferences and so on. With Big Data, businesses in tourism industry develop their strategic decisions such as price and attractive packages for the tourists by analysing the customer preferences through accessing their requirements they have entered online (Xiang & Fesenmaier, 2017).
Artificial intelligence is also emerging in the industry with the advancement of technology; for instance, many companies are introducing chatbots and online customer service applications through which customers can enter their queries and they would get an instant reply for the same. In other words, AI has enabled businesses to provide time to customers when it is unmanageable for humans. Involvements of AI in the industry have been augmenting customer service and experience as well (Revfine, 2019).
The fact is tacit that travel industry thrives to adopt technological changes quickly; travellers have been alongside enthusiastic about the technological changes made in the industry. These changes have given rise to many new platforms on the internet such as social media, fresh business models like Airbnb & Uber. The era has been continuously changing, and the use of Big Data and AI have been continuously increasing (Saulat, 2018).
With the use of these data, businesses could make an effective business decision which includes pricing and other strategies, but they would not be able to use traditional methods or databases to store and analyse the data (Song & Liu, 2017). Therefore, Big Data is used to store and analysed the data whether it is structured or unstructured, by analysing effectively, businesses in the industry are able to understand customer preferences and requirements and endow them with attractive offers and services effectively (Buhalis & Amaranggana, 2013).
The tourism industry is rapidly moving up with the use of AI in various areas. AI in travel and tourism sector is being used for complete and manage bookings, on-trip prerequisites, post-trip requirements, personalize choices and so on. AI helps the industry to serve travellers with time and speed at which humans could not process efficiently. For instance, KLM Airlines have been using AI in social media to transact the queries, and by 2018, KLM was efficaciously dealing with 50% of all the enquiries made online. Similarly, Lola is a travel app for iPhones which could provide assistance to travel bookings according to the requirements. Therefore, AI helps the tourism industry to understand customer preferences and manage the tourists with efficiently, more importantly, AI helps to save time and labour (Saulat, 2018).
Implications of Big Data
Positive aspects
- Competent time organization and more convenient customer handling
- Keep up with the current trends
- Cost efficiency
- Enhanced sales and extra revenue
- New strategies could be easily developed to be competent in the marketplace (Yaqoob, et. al., 2016).
Negative aspects
- Organizations using Big Data should ensure that their IT systems are competently designed to prevent security breaches and other security concerns.
- Special computer power is prerequisite
- It is hard to find efficient data scientists or people who can handle the data efficiently(Yaqoob, et. al., 2016).
Implications of Artificial Intelligence
Positive aspects
- Enhanced communication with travellers with the use of technologies such as chatbots
- Bulk amount of data could be analysed at a time
- Organizations can effectively deliver time to the customers
- Employee costs could be cut down(Borràs, et. al., 2014).
Negative aspects
- New technology: there are still bugs that have to be worked out.
- Industry needs to figure out first, what are the needs and wants of the travellers (Chowdhury & Sadek, 2012).
Conclusion
Technological advancements have influenced the travel and tourism industry up to a greater extent; impossible changes are being made in the industry with the influence of technological changes and innovations. Tourism today, and 10 years ago has a lot of differences; earlier internet was not this much popular and there were no technological advancements as compared to the present situation. Nowadays, people can plan, book, travel and do every possible thing with the help of the internet and other online technologies. With the advancement of technology, the applications of AI & Big Data have also been increasing consequently. Application of AI and Big Data in the tourism industry has enhanced the tourism sector globally; consequently, customer experiences have also been enhanced. Businesses in the tourism industry could easily understand the industry trend and customer preferences by using Big Data, through which effective strategic decisions are being made. Similarly, AI technologies have been used in the industry for enhancing the traveller’s experience. The report has provided with all the details about the use of AI & Big Data in the industry, along with their positive and negative aspects.
References
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Kitchin, R., & McArdle, G. (2016). What makes Big Data, Big Data? Exploring the ontological characteristics of 26 datasets. Big Data & Society, 3(1).
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Russell, S. J., & Norvig, P. (2016). Artificial intelligence: a modern approach. Malaysia; Pearson Education Limited.
Saha, S. (2018). Big Data in Tourism: How Big Data Analytics can help the Travel and Tourism Industry Grow. Retrieved from https://blog.datahut.co/how-big-data-analytics-can-help-the-travel-and-tourism-industry-grow/
Saulat, M. (2018). Four Ways AI is Re-Imagining the Future of Travel. Retrieved from https://www.mindtree.com/blog/four-ways-ai-re-imagining-future-travel
Song, H., & Liu, H. (2017). Predicting tourist demand using big data. In Analytics in smart tourism design (pp. 13-29). US: Springer.
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Yaqoob, I., Hashem, I. A. T., Gani, A., Mokhtar, S., Ahmed, E., Anuar, N. B., & Vasilakos, A. V. (2016). Big data: From beginning to future. International Journal of Information Management, 36(6), 1231-1247.
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