Industry stakeholders on tech's role in solving traveler pain points

As technology and artificial intelligence (AI) evolves, travel industry stakeholders want solutions for traveler pain points.

During a center stage session at The Phocuswright Conference, Pete Comeau, managing director of Phocuswright, asked panelists what they are focused on amending in the next three to five years.

Paul Jacobs, general manager and SVP for North America and Asia Pacific for Kayak, touched on how AI can work with metasearch.

“Customers want to save money, and they want to know that they did a good job shopping and making that decision,” Jacobs said, adding that AI’s role is almost opposite to metasearch.

When a user understands where they want to go and what they want to do, they still want to ensure they’re securing the best price and booking with a trusted brand. There’s room, Jacobs said, to play with the shopping journey to give consumers control of booking and price comparison.

Skyscanner CEO Bryan Batista mentioned personalization, which he said the travel industry has done a “terrible job with.”

“There's finally an opportunity to bring personalization and memory to the forefront of our products,” he said. 

While the lowest price may be what some travelers want, Batista said results should be focused on the most relevant answers. According to Batista, the industry must adapt to include results that show the fastest journey, most reliable provider, best customer service and most flexibility.

“I think there's an opportunity also for [metasearch] to go beyond its mainstays in hotels and flights,” Batista said. “With the AI tools at our disposal, why not build further comparison funnels?”

For tours and activities, the core pain point is fragmented marketplaces, said Mariano Dima, chairman of Civitatis. As a result, curation and access to quality listings is key.

“The area to really focus on to solve [this], is to ensure that you drive more connectivity—[there are] still a lot of things offline—and then solve the search,” he said.

Watch the full conversation moderated by Comeau and Siew Hoon Yeoh, founder of WiT and editorial director of Northstar Travel Group Asia, below.