Travel is back! Consumers are once again riding the rails, hitting the road, and flying the friendly skies. With the continued influx in bookings, more companies in travel and hospitality rely on Generative AI to increase revenue and brand loyalty.
NB: This is an article from Persado
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According to the US Travel Association’s latest forecast, domestic leisure travel will return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024, while domestic business travel continues its slow recovery due to inflation. This is good news for the economy and for travel companies.
As demand improves, travel companies will need ways to compete for each traveler’s dollar. In this fast-moving travel environment, many providers are turning to Generative AI to increase the volume and quality of their messaging to boost bookings and loyalty programs.
7 ways Generative AI maximizes marketing ROI in the travel industry
Generative AI leverages natural language processing models to produce text or images based on simple prompts. Many Generative AI platforms enable economies of scale to quickly produce copy such as email subject lines and social media content.
The potential of Generative AI to improve marketing ROI in travel sectors is enormous. We should expect its adoption to be much quicker than the shift to the internet a generation ago. Below are the latest trends:
1. Personalized Booking Experiences and Marketing Communications
Today’s customers expect personalized booking experiences. The concierge-style experience shouldn’t start when the customer arrives at their destination. With the help of motivation-aware Generative AI, it can begin during the booking process or even as early as the first marketing contact with the customer.
Large travel brands can look for Generative AI tools for the travel industry that create personalized itineraries in real-time at scale. By using data related to the individual customer, travel operators can develop a travel itinerary for Paris, Miami, or Sydney that reflects individual needs and display it within seconds.
As data sets become more sophisticated, recommendations—and the language used to promote them—will become even more targeted. For example, if a loyal customer just took a Caribbean cruise, motivation-aware Generative AI can help brands fine-tune the language in a post-trip message suggesting their next get-away. Predictive analytics can help identify the next offer—should it be a trip to Alaska, or another sand-and-sea get-away? Combining that with optimized, AI-generated language, the travel operator can more effectively spur the customer to take action and book the next trip or excursion. Enterprise travel companies that have the ability to do this at scale, will motivate customers to book time and time again, increasing both revenue and loyalty.
We are already seeing initial forays into this area. In June 2023, Booking.com launched its new AI trip planner to improve travel planning. Priceline and Tripadvisor quickly followed. Industry experts expect this space to grow rapidly.
