Want To Save Travel Costs? Robots May Be Better Than You.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer an unreachable dream.

Machine learning makes it possible to identify and adapt user behavior patterns by analyzing data.

Machine learning has long been used to recommend new music to users and detect credit card fraud. More and more people begin to make use of machine learning to make travel plans more quickly.

AI, which is essentially a robot, can help companies save up to millions of dollars in travel expenses.

However, if there is no new technology to replace the existing "default settings" of tourism websites, these settings will continue to affect the decisions of business travelers in a "silent way".

It can not be realized.

Whether airlines, hotels, car rental companies, or OTA will set default options in the booking process according to certain strategic objectives.

This default setting has two purposes.

First of all, increase the conversion rate: tourism websites will eliminate obstacles that may affect conversion rate as far as possible.

Second, maximize revenue per order: when setting these options, travel websites tend to take into account the sensitivity of potential consumers to price.

Business travelers are often less sensitive to prices, and they are more influenced by the design of booking tools.

Let me give you a few examples.

When you search for hotels in Expedia or Sky Patrol network, the default setting is to sort the search results according to the most popular hotels.

The search results for air tickets and rentals are sorted from low to high.

Because the default setting of tourist websites is that users are not so sensitive to the price of hotels, and are more sensitive to the price of air tickets and rentals.

On other websites, you can search according to your choice.

For example, you search the hotel in a certain price range on Kayak, but according to the default settings, Kayak will sort the search results according to "recommended".

Why is that?

Why a OTA of a commission will let you think more about it

Not the most popular hotel, because the price of the first El Luxor Hotel you see will give you an expectation of reasonable housing prices.

For example, if you see that the first four hotels in the search results are $500 or even more expensive per night, you will feel that the $300 a night hotel doesn't seem to be that expensive.

Please note that Kayak puts the price search option in a less noticeable drop-down menu, and the Sky Patrol network does the same.

The purpose of default settings is not to provide users with the lowest price tour.

Through the above examples, you can find that UI designers of tourism websites make full use of human psychology.

However, AI travel plan App will not play tricks like this, so it can help reduce the company.

The default setting for this kind of App is "cost saving".

However, this AI App also needs to overcome many difficulties.

First of all, you need to correctly understand the price that App offers you.

App based on AI technology can easily help you find the cheapest business trip from New York to Chicago, but you may not be satisfied with the search results.

You will think that you can make a reservation by window and aisle seat. Why do you want to book a middle seat? Why did it choose a hotel that is far away from the customers you want to visit?

Therefore, the choice of travel AI App is not necessarily the cheapest. It will choose a percentage lower than the average price.

The default settings of AI can often be 30% lower than the average price. Travelers can float the price range on the basis of this number to find a balance between cost and comfort.

Secondly, although AI App can imitate users to make reservation choices, it may not be very clear why they choose this option.

For example, can the computer algorithm realize that you always book a hotel close to the bus stop? Can it see if your behavior pattern has changed? Maybe the hotel you reserved is equipped with a gym.

Perhaps for many people, it seems a more obvious decision, many algorithms still can not be identified.

For more complex behavior patterns, AI users may need to manually set dozens of reservation criteria.

Third, travelers need to spend time training "AI App".

Traveling booking takes a lot of brainpower and energy.

So, will businessmen still insist on booking with this kind of App? It depends on their reward mechanism, that is, how urgent is their desire to save costs?

AI booking tools such as Pana, HelloGbye, WayBlazer and Hello Hipmunk are already trying to make travel booking more convenient.

If this new technology can be properly applied, it may save travel costs.