SITA lays another steppingstone on the digital travel path
The way data management is handled within the aviation industry is at the heart of a partnership between SITA and travel identity company Zamna Technologies.
Zamna’s solution uses a decentralised blockchain based model to transform how passenger data, such as passport, visa, and health information, is verified and handled along the travel chain.
SITA said the partnership offers “the next step in the journey” to SITA’s vision of a completely digital travel experience.
Instead of passengers presenting travel documents to every touch point each time they fly, Zamna’s technology can verify and securely contain such data.
SITA says verified traveller data will be shared throughout the journey, eliminating duplicate processes, increasing trust, and improving the passenger experience.
“Airlines and airports benefit from a tested and verified technology for reduced processing times, and less infrastructure needed to process passengers,” SITA added.
The first deployment of the technology will be focused on the Arab Air Carriers’ Association’s (AACO) 30-plus airlines.
Microsoft likes what it hears from ChatGPT
Microsoft has announced a multi-year, multibillion dollar investment in artificial intelligence (AI) as it extends its partnership with OpenAI.
OpenAI is the creator of popular image generation tool Dall-E and the chatbot ChatGPT.
In 2019 Microsoft invested $1bn in the company, founded by Elon Musk and tech investor Sam Altman.
Launched on November 30 by OpenAI, ChatGPT (which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a free artificial intelligence chatbot that has incredibly human-like communication skills.
Asked to comment on its likely applications by Phocuswire, Peter Syme, founder of 1000 Mile Journey, said, “There will be a big impact on productivity and content production. You can’t deny that. Every single tour operator, even single hotel, every transport company now has the same opportunity to be as productive as a company much bigger than themselves.
“I see that as a commodity – everyone has access to it therefore, in some ways, where’s the value. But it’s the most productivity-enhancing thing I’ve ever seen.
“However, I don’t think that’s the real impact. I think that’s just the start of the game. Once AI starts to get into the actual experiences – not just tour experiences but hotels, airports… the ability to speed up and enhance the actual experience, especially in something that is not a good experience at the moment, like an airport, is going to be quite dramatic.
And the real game changer… is once the general public has it, it changes everything. You are a tour operator, and you create itineraries. The consumer can now do exactly the same thing as you and do it in real time.
And 1,000 people can create 1,000 different experiences tailored to what they like. So, the creation of a travel experience on the ground, which tour operators have dominated, is going to be disrupted by travellers being able to do it themselves.
“The weakness at the moment is it’s only scraping data through 2021. So, it’s not the live data, it’s not up to date, the facts may not be 100% and it doesn’t have geolocation. It can give you an itinerary that doesn’t make sense.
“But take companies like Tripadvisor, Google – all the people with that data can put a wrapper around it, connect facts and geolocation and bang. I’d imagine Tripadvisor’s strategy team is awake all night at the moment trying to figure out if we’ve got all the unique data, how do we connect it with the power of this and then how do we monetize it.”
Revenge is still sweet for the travel industry
Revenge travel shows no signs of slowing down, a new report on December’s web traffic for the biggest online travel agencies has found.
Jim Corridore, senior insights manager for Similarweb, said Tripadvisor, Expedia, Airbnb and Booking.com enjoyed a large enough increase in visitor traffic on both a yearly and monthly basis to bode well for 2023
Corridore says, “People are choosing experiences over other types of purchases with their discretionary income, and of those experiences they are choosing to travel. “That is a strong sign for hotels and vacation rentals, airlines, cruises, car rentals – the entire sector is still seeing decent growth.”
Tripadvisor remained the most popular site with 89 million visitors in December, 15% higher than the previous year. Expedia saw nearly 17% growth with its 67 million visitors, matching the total for Airbnb, which lagged the others with 6% year-over-year growth.
Airbnb also lost the most relative traffic share, slipping two percentage points versus its peers, while Booking.com gained the most in the group with nearly two percentage points.
Source: Phocuswire
Here’s a tip to help hoteliers retain staff
The co-founder of a cashless tipping platform eTip, believes its technology could help hoteliers facing staffing issues.
Robert Petteruti, speaking during the ALIS Tech Challenge at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit, called the “difficulty in attracting, retaining, motivating and increasing hourly wages of team members” one of hospitality’s “largest challenges”.
According to Petteruti, hotels that have deployed eTip’s technology, which enables guests to tip via QR code or add tips to their folio upon check-out, have been able to increase their staff’s hourly earnings by around 35%.
“The decline of cash transactions like tips has gradually decreased discretionary income for millions of hospitality staff members,” said Petteruti. “We’ve been able to increase hourly earnings without increasing labour costs, [and as a result] lower rapid turnover and increase retention.”
The ALIS Tech Challenge also heard from Rellevate, a digital banking and payment services platform, also positioned as a product with potential to help hotels reduce employee churn.
Chief among Rellevate’s features is its Pay Any-Day tool, which grants employees immediate access to their earned pay without having to wait until the next payday.
“Unfortunately, many times as an employer, you don’t know your people have some kind of financial stress until they’re actually walking out the door,” said Chris Sears, Rellevate’s director of business development.
“Employees are asking for it,” asserted Sears. “They want to have that benefit as part of their hiring package. It’s a pathway to really help with your employee retention, and a differentiator from a recruiting and hiring perspective.”
Source: Travel Weekly Asia/Christina Jelski
