Artificial intelligence will drive travel and tourism in India over the next decade: Sabre-Republic World

Garry Wisemen, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Saber | Photo: Republic Business

A new flying experience: A senior Saber official said artificial intelligence (AI) will change the way people travel, with travel at the business and global levels becoming more deliberate.

Garry Wiseman, executive vice president and chief product and technology officer of travel technology system Saber, delivered a speech to Republic Business on using emerging technologies to create customer-centric and personalized travel experiences.

Wiseman said religious tourism, in the context of the inauguration of the Ram Mandir, has led to a post-Covid travel resurgence. friction”.

According to statistics, India is a rapidly growing country with a population of more than 1.4 billion. According to the latest United Nations report, India has surpassed China to become the most populous country in the world.

The World Travel and Tourism Council’s economic impact study also estimates that India will surpass Germany to become the third largest travel and tourism country in the world.

“Especially in India as we know it, as the airline continues to expand, some of our major airline customers have ordered a significant number of new aircraft to cope with the growing demand. From a SABER perspective, we can really A lot of things come into play to try to help travelers,” Wiseman said.

This is in line with a recent Saber report which suggested that Indian airlines are expected to play a significant role in international travel.

Notably, India’s middle class is expected to grow from one-third to two-thirds by 2047, and travel will become more convenient and affordable for this growing group.

Personalized experience, powered by AI

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Wiseman said the use of artificial intelligence will help speed up the development process and bring products to market faster.

“Many airlines in particular are launching new digital experiences and continually improving them, so using artificial intelligence can speed up the development process and bring products to market faster,” he said.

From a sales and customer-facing perspective, AI will continue to personalize the passenger’s end-to-end journey.

“This means we will start to see more personalized services come into play in travel agencies,” he said.

But it also means that as artificial intelligence-enabled bots get better through generative technology (GenAI), self-help or access to service itself will become easier.

Wiseman said this will reduce costs for airlines because GenAI models will become smarter and better able to interpret the latest data, such as flight information.

“On the service side, by enabling these AI engagement bots, the amount of self-service that customers can achieve will increase. Generative AI models will become smarter in understanding the questions raised by customers,” he said.

This will also provide customers with wider language support, a move that helps multilingual countries like India.

Automated Aviation Experience

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The in-person check-in experience is also expected to become easier as airlines deploy facial recognition technology to enable ticketless travel.

Wiseman said that Dallas in the United States is trialling artificial intelligence at certain boarding gates to realize the boarding process and allow boarding without a ticket.

“Instead, it’s a camera that identifies who you are and allows you to board automatically.”

Back in India, the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s DigiYaatri is digitizing passengers at airports, promoting paperless travel and using facial recognition technology to avoid security checks at multiple locations.

It also provides assistance with facilities such as point of entry checks, entry security checks, boarding, and self-service bag drop and inspection.

“From an engagement perspective, airlines, hoteliers, car rental companies and platform providers, as well as ourselves, are all very focused on measuring the end-to-end experience of our customers… because we want to make travel as easy and enjoyable as possible,” He said.

aviation retail

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For passengers traveling from home to their destination, the end-to-end airline journey is fragmented and includes cab rides, accommodation and events, which is a more complex experience than retail, Wiseman said.

“There’s been a lot of revolution and evolution over the last 15 to 20 years in trying to create a personalized retail experience… starting from (your home), to going to the airport, you have to take a taxi or an Uber,” he noted.

The retail industry involves travel experience, and airlines are stepping up plans to provide passengers with shopping services during the journey.

“Airlines are increasingly talking about retail. This is a topic that started before COVID-19, but it has really accelerated since COVID-19, with customers expecting more digital services since the pandemic – They want everything available on their phone,” he said.

This trend will benefit passengers across different segments – as airlines see higher traffic and a richer travel experience in economy and business travel.