Technology is a key differentiator in the travel industry with tour operators, OTAs and offline agents understanding the need to adopt cutting edge solutions for competitive advantage. By Saloni Bhatia and Mohit Rathod

Technology has brought about metamorphic changes in the travel industry with online travel agents (OTAs) and an important segment of tour operators and agents focused on adopting the latest technology for enhancing operational efficiency and providing better customer service. It was in the past when the app was the next big thing, now it is all about innovative products to further engage the traveller.  The sector is already flooded with apps that can book tickets, provide tracking details, give detailed travel lists and even audio guides as travellers explore new places. Last five years have seen advancement in big data and predictive analytics, cloud technology and artificial intelligence.

Cutting edge technology is adding to the convenience of the traveller and also aiding an agent’s operations. Big data and predictive analytics have already helped OTAs in reaching out to a wider audience by analysing consumer behaviour. The latest advancement in technology are chatbots or artificial intelligence that serve as a virtual guide, engaging an interactive conversation with the customer.

Artificial intelligence and predictive analytics

Tripoto.com is a travel community where people share their travel itineraries. It was one of the first portals to launch artificial intelligence, Tripoto.ai to assist their travellers. Talking about the new programme, Michael Lyngdoh, co-founder, Tripoto.com says, “Tripoto.ai is simply a computer programme that answers questions by travellers automatically. It acts as a virtual, chat based travel concierge that is available 24*7. You can ask for information about hotels, destinations, attractions, itineraries, how to reach, best time to visit, getaways, restaurants, culture, festivals, activities, weather, time,distance, etc. The programme is self-learning and improves itself by learning from travellers that share their itineraries on Tripoto.” Travellers access information in a variety of ways and the path to decision is quiet complex. “We want to be available to help at multiple touch points in the travellers journey. Within a few weeks of the launch we have more than 10,000 user chats every day on the platform. We are widening the scope of questions that tripoto.ai can answer – including flights and buses. We are introducing a package planner in the product and partnering with travel agents to transfer qualified holiday leads directly to them,” adds Lyngdoh.

Lyngdoh believes that virtual reality, panoramic content and augmented reality content are going to change how people get inspired, plan their trips and share their memories. “Personalised virtual travel assistants that understand your travel interests, budgets needs, etc, will be available on mobile or let’s say your watch – so that you can just pick up your bags, start your holiday and leave the mundane tasks of research, planning and booking to the personalised AI system,” he mentions.

Now many travel agencies are working to integrate better mobile messaging to ease the travel booking process. There are also discussions of introducing new service that would provide concierge like assistance in the online travel booking space. An app called Lola has already been launched on Apple store that combines the augmented chat feature with artificial intelligence and a staff of travel agents to book for its travel users. Himanshu Verma, chief technology officer, Yatra.com, says, “Automation of travel related tasks was the first phase of technology enabling travel and now technology is moving towards providing intelligence to all the stakeholders in the ecosystem. We are experimenting with Natural Language Processing (NLP) based text search so that customers can express their queries easily. We are also focusing heavily on mobile so that users can access all our services on the go as well as get mobile only services like instant flight check-in, last minute hotel bookings, location based hotel search, cab bookings, etc.” Yatra has recently introduced a feature to book outstation and hourly cabs on the mobile app and will be going deeper into the ground transportation area. “We are also using all these technologies in some shape or form on the website behind the scene like public cloud for data processing and analytics. At the same time we have also rolled out a homegrown customer relation management (CRM) called Infinity, which is tailor-made for our needs, deeply integrated with rest of the platform and simplifies the customer work flows so that customer service agents can focus on solving the the user’s problem rather than struggling with a complex tool,” informs Verma.

Back-end efficiency

TravelTriangle, which is an online portal connecting travel agents and travellers all across the country, has a system in place to increase back-end efficiency and enable easy access to the agents. Pratiroop Mehta, director- product, TravelTriangle states, “We at TravelTriangle have built a SaaS based sales management tool solution that is 10x salesforce tuned to travel agent needs. The tool enables agents to manage the requests that the portal receives from its customers. The CRM solution has also revolutionised the way agents work, bringing efficiency into their day to day sales and operations.”

The app is assisting the agents in different ways. “We have introduced chat on the agent dashboard that allows them to connect with travellers in real-time and solve their concerns. This has led the response rate from agents to increase by 100 per cent which has led to higher number of conversions. The TravelTriangle statistics tool also enables agents to see how their employees are performing on day-to-day basis. Detailed statistics on whether the employees are following up enough with travellers, are they prompt in sending quotes, etc. This has enabled agents to improve their sales and operations,” informs Mehta.

Customer service

In recent times to enhance customer experience, SOTC Travel has introduced Plan My Holiday, a customisation tool, chat, web notifications, pop-up banners on its website. “We will also be introducing tools like ‘Call Back’ on the website going forward. Our endeavour as a business is to make our customer acquisition more efficient and we have made investments in a robust CRM solution which also integrates with our online/ digital platform. This CRM application allows us to collate all customer data and understand behavioural insights,” says S D Nandakumar, business head – B2B and e-commerce, SOTC Travel.

According to Amit Taneja, chief revenue officer, Cleartrip, his company is constantly striving to utilise technology to enhance customers’ experiences. “We are able to connect to them through mobile. Our latest addition, Cleartrip Activities, features a comprehensive collection of local experiences. The service was launched three months ago and we are thrilled that is has now extended to over 50 cities. Use of technology has been proven beneficial for the environment as well. Cleartrip was one of the first OTAs to launch the passbook feature on iOS and Android platforms. Additionally, when Apple Watch was launched, Cleartrip was the only OTA to support its functionality on the device.”

Leveraging the strengths

The Chinese outbound market report from the Chinese Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) revealed an interesting trend – 20 per cent of the 120 million Chinese outbound travellers booked travel using an OTA in 2015 (a seven per cent increase over 2014 and the strongest indicator that booking sites continue to be more accepted throughout China); however, 80 per cent of Chinese travellers booked offline and used one of the more than 27,000 brick and mortar travel agents last year. It will be interesting to compare the booking trends in India outbound in the near future.

Guldeep Singh Sahni, president, Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) and managing director, Weldon Holidays, says, “Technology is surely the way forward and as a travel agent I need to analyse how can it help me to be faster. The customer wants to experiment with new places and that is when they head to the agents who can provide them specialised information. Basically, the information provided by a travel agent should be faster than a computer. An agent’s strength is the information he can provide to the customer and that is what we should focus on, bringing forward through technology.”

Chatbots are based on the same concept. The chatbots in the future will not only answer queries but will respond to emotional responses, just like humans. Artificial intelligence will be helpful in increasing customer base and maximising returns as the entire booking process will soon be automated.

Neil Patil, founder and director, Veena World mentions, “Bots is yet another trend setting technology that is engaging customers and enhancing their experience in making decisions regarding the booking of their favourite tour by assisting them in getting their holiday itineraries planned, all through an automated system. Technology is a boon in many ways. We recently introduced a smart phone app for our tour managers. Now-a-days there is also the general trend of using big data and business intelligence (BI) tools. At Veena World, we have a full-fledged IT team providing us with the BI tools that help us in chalking out the future market strategy. In India we still have a very large number of people preferring desktop over mobile for their day to day transactions and for engaging in a holiday booking experience. Although mobile is the future, still a good blend of desktop as well as smart phone presence in the form of an app is the need of the hour.”

For offline travel agents also an online presence has become imperative with a growing number of travellers planning their itineraries online, be it hotel bookings, air tickets or full packages. The number of portals providing such services has not only increased but they have become a one-stop-destination for customers. New technology is not only enhancing the customer experience but encouraging them to explore new places. The more convenient it is for the customers to make a booking, better are the chances of them returning to your portal.