With the travel landscape changing rapidly, it can be hard to take stock of what is in front on you.
Travel companies are looking to technologies such as artificial intelligence and data analytics to help them navigate the fast pace of change and improve services to customers.
Sometimes it helps to get a view of the landscape from a large player - to validate the path your company is on, perhaps turn a long-held view on its head and maybe even plant the seed of an idea.
Step forward Microsoft to provide its view on what's happening and the technologies to look out for.
At Amadeus' Altitude 22 airline executive event last week, Ulrich Homann, corporate vice president within the cloud and AI business at Microsoft, outlined three "key dimensions" for travel companies to think about.
Homann highlighted operations and the ability to get a handle on things as they move and change.
"We have to think about how we get visibility into what's happening, ideally before it's happening so predictability based on data is something everyone needs to think about," he said.
Homann went on to talk about people and, given the backdrop of labor shortages, what companies can do with the people they have through hybrid work and optimization.
Consumers also need to be front and center, and companies need to manage the evolving consumer experience.
"Everyone is going to a product of one, which means it's my experience and not just any experience, and that's a critical one," he said.
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Within all of this, Homann added that travel companies also need to address sustainability from both customer and employee standpoints.
He also highlight three technologies to watch going forward.
He described confidential computing, which enables data to be encrypted while it's being processed and moved around, as undervalued technology but something "everybody at board level should look into."
Homan also said the metaverse is going to be key for both consumers and enterprises as it enables physical assets to be put into a digital context.
He provided the forthcoming World Cup in Qatar as an example and said the destination and organizers could use the technology to simulate behavior, model traffic and visualize it in the metaverse.
Artificial intelligence is the third technology to watch, according to Homann.
"It's one of the things that is going to be everywhere. There is a set of capabilities that is changing the way AI works, there are very large AI models, which will change the way AI works."
* Reporter's attendance at the event was supported by Amadeus.