Mengni Fu checks into her hotel room using her cell phone from the backseat of a taxi. When she arrives at the hotel, she drops off her luggage to one of the robot porters who delivers it to her room. She unlocks her room with a digital key on her cell phone. Then she sits on the bed and asks the AI assistant to turn on the lights, close the curtains and recommend a nearby restaurant.
So far, Fu hasn’t interacted with any humans in the hotel. This is not the plot of a science fiction film; it’s about a trip to China in 2025. Fu, a doctoral student at Griffith University, describes a recent trip to Shanghai.
And according to the consulting firm McKinsey and Co this is the future of travel: where technology erases “typical travel problems such as queues, misunderstandings or misinformation” and where the human interactions that occur are “authentic and meaningful”.
Robotics, AI and service automation are disrupting the hospitality and tourism industry as they represent many aspects of our lives. More and more people are turning to AI chatbots built on large language models, like ChatGPT or Trip Advisor’s “my trips,” to plan their vacations.
Popular destinations are using “smart tourism” to manage tourist flows, and companies selling headsets with simultaneous translation herald the end of the language barrier.
The question is: will new technologies simply lead to streamlined service and stress-free travel, or will they fundamentally change tourism and tourist destinations?
The ability to find a road less traveled in the future may depend on your ability to invite an AI assistant. (Unsplash: Steven Lewis)
“Kill our business”
Guide to Lofoten’s Instagram account is usually filled with breathtaking photographs of colorful fishing villages framed by rugged mountains. The Norwegian tour operator publishes spectacular, but rarely viral, content. In October, a different kind of message struck a chord: “This is how ChatGPT is killing our local small business.”
The owners say they lose revenue and visibility as fewer people visit their website, instead getting their information from ChatGPT, which does not recommend local businesses like theirs. “We know we’ll have to adapt, but it always hurts to see something you’ve been building for years collapse like a house of cards in less than a year,” the owners said on Instagram.
Dr. Marianna Sigala says there’s no doubt that people are turning to generative AI to plan their vacations, from choosing a destination to comparing prices to planning a daily itinerary. “The impact is huge. It affects consumers and when consumers are immediately affected, you realize that businesses are going to have to readjust because they can’t continue to do and sell what they were doing before,” says the marketing professor and director of Newcastle University’s International Hospitality School.
Sigala compares this to the disruptive power of the steam engine or the impact Booking.com had on online travel in the early 2000s, when average consumers gained access to the Internet and began booking their own travel.
Travel planning using generative AI is described as the “hyper-personalization” of travel. Sigala says creating highly individualized itineraries will change the way tourists travel – but its impact will depend on how the tool is used. “The power of AI depends first on the quality and quantity of the data it has been trained on, and it is trained continuously… and secondly, it depends on what you ask of it,” she says. “If we ask stupid questions, we get stupid answers.”
St. Peter’s Basilica – one of the most visited places in Europe – now has a ‘digital twin’ created using AI technology. (Reuters: Amanda Perobelli)
The Road Less Traveled
From the 19thth Century rail expansion to cheap air travel on color television, Professor Adrien Palmer argues in The Conversation this technology has long fueled overtourism. Palmer believes it is too early to tell what impact AI will have on travel. But he says generative itineraries planned by AI could potentially keep tourists away from overtourism hotspots or that AI-enhanced virtual reality could eliminate the need to travel in the first place.
As the “digital twin” of St. Peter’s Basilica – one of the most visited places in Europe – which the Vatican unveiled last year. Created using AI technology that analyzed and pieced together large quantities of photographs and videos, the digital twin gives anyone with access to the internet the ability to “visit.”
As Sigala suggests, the ability to find a road less traveled in the future may depend on your ability to invite an AI assistant.
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Marketing researcher Joseph Mellors says his analysis of ChatGPT “revealed that it gravitates toward the most visited destinations by default.”
“By asking more specific questions, changing their timing, checking footprints and searching for local voices, travelers can use AI as a tool for discovery rather than congestion,” Mellors said. written in The Conversation. “Every prompt is a signal to the system about what matters.”
AI-inspired travelers will need to be wary of hallucinations – or generative AI chatbots produce misleading content because they create plausible statements based on models, which are not necessarily correct or real. THE The BBC recently reported the case of two tourists who were about to go hiking in the Peruvian mountains in search of a non-existent canyon that AI had served them before being stopped by a local guide.
PhD student Mengni Fu is studying how Generation Z consumers and workers in China and Australia feel about the rapid technological innovation transforming the tourism sector. (Provided: Mengni Fu)
“Something is lost, something is gained”
In popular tourist destinations, AI technology is also changing the way tourist flows are managed.
“Smart cities” use big data collected from “traffic control systems, public transportation ticketing, cell phone signals, museum ticket sales, hotel room nights and even credit card companies” to understand people flows, Sigala says. “AI helps them analyze massive amounts of data faster and in real time,” she explains. “Smart cities” are turning to “smart tourism” by using destination apps to communicate with tourists by suggesting different routes, attractions and visiting times to help them manage the hordes of visitors.
How can these and other technological advances – such as live translation headphones — changing the tourist experience remains to be seen. By eliminating misunderstandings, queues, and the chances of getting lost, will we inadvertently eliminate the surprises that make tourism unique? Sigala is optimistic.
“When I first traveled, Google Maps didn’t exist…if I think about it, I’m like, ‘Damn, how did I find my way with that paper map?’ “, she says. Today she is no longer afraid of getting lost, she doesn’t waste time because she took the wrong path and she sees things she might have missed in the past. “Something is lost, but something is gained.”
Mengni Fu says that despite the rapid integration of AI, robotics and automation in hospitality and tourism, service with a (human) smile will remain important.
Her PhD explores how Gen Z consumers and workers in China and Australia feel about the rapid technological innovation transforming the sector. Fu surveyed more than 1,000 people and said the vast majority of people would prefer new technologies to replace some industry tasks, not workers. But those surveyed, particularly in Australia, fear for their job security.
And even though Chinese respondents were more likely to adopt new technologies (given that they are more accustomed to them), they still opt for places and services where humans collaborate with technology. “Sometimes we still need that human warmth, we still need to talk with humans,” Fu says.