Travel Forward
a handful of other major tech companies dominate the technology required to make voice work well, resulting in most consumers using voice through one of the popular digital assistant apps or devices such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or Apple Siri.
While any company can create a website or mobile app and market it to customers to freely use or download, voice platforms are more restrictive than the web or mobile apps. When a result is returned via voice, by default a very limited number of answers can be offered by the digital assistant (often just one). This has major implications for advertising and product discovery. When a consumer opts to search for travel via voice, who will be the provider of the answer or the requested product or service? The one who bids the highest to be there (as with paid search, but with potentially only one bid available)? The one with a backend agreement in place with the digital assistant provider? Or the one who owns enough infrastructure to fulfil the request themselves? This remains to be determined.
The race for supremacy Voice is about convenience – the digital assistants that can deliver the best ongoing experience for consumers will develop their trust, and with that trust will come loyalty. Thus, the competition for digital assistant supremacy may
ultimately be determined by comprehensiveness, where consumers can ask a digital assistant anything. The assistant that can provide the best answers consistently will have the advantage. And that could well be Google. Even in late 2017, Google Home was outperforming Amazon Alexa in answering a broad set of questions, notably with an 80% success rate for ‘travel’ questions vs. 21% for Alexa. The most recent major news from Google was the May 2018 announcement of Google Duplex, an AI system for accomplishing real-world tasks over the phone that can understand and mimic the
nuances of human conversation. And Google also has an
advantage in that its digital assistant is omnichannel – a query begun on a Google Home can be picked up on an Android phone, continued via automated phone conversations, resumed on a smart TV, and finished in Chrome on a laptop. In the search for the next big device/platform opportunity after social media and mobile devices, each of the biggest tech players wants to be the one to own the voice space. The holy grail for them is to know what people are interested in or talking about, and voice can provide more input than
any other medium due to its inherent (although limited by privacy settings) ability to listen to and analyse full conversations.
Travellers indicate that they are quite comfortable releasing their data to support personalisation, so it’s mostly open road ahead. And indeed, voice could enable a new era of personalisation - voice devices are already able to authenticate and identify who is speaking, and with this identification you could, for example, be automatically logged into an Alexa device in a hotel room with all your media and personal preferences automatically loaded. In 10 years’ time, voice may be embedded in everything and become the primary human/ computer interface. Some even doubt whether we will need smartphones anymore. Despite being one of the first industries to come online, travel was slow to adapt to mobile. Now, travel companies need to aggressively experiment with voice on the major voice platforms, especially Google and Amazon, in their own mobile presence, and in all their customer touchpoints. Failure to do so brings the very real risk of falling further behind as customers expect to use voice, and as digital assistants continue to improve their capabilities and gain significant market share at an unprecedented pace.
Owning the “voice space” is the holy grail for the big tech players
THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY CLUB (TT212)
hospitalityindustry.club
WHAT WE DO: The Hospitality Industry Club is a community of service providers in the hotel branch. We get together to present hoteliers with innovative solutions, technologies and ideas in a relaxed but inspiring atmosphere. Our community of selected providers arrange “camps” in 12 cities in Central Europe. During the evening, our experts exchange know-how and deliver new insights on topics defined together with you, the hoteliers. The evening starts at 6.30pm and lasts four to five hours, with a short innovation talk by one of our partners, a quick introduction round, networking, exchanging ideas
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and, most importantly, defining the topics which will be addressed in the workshops.
WHAT’S NEW: We are planning to organise more than 20 camps in 2019, around seven trade show representations for our members, plus an annual event for our members and hoteliers. In 2019, we will push into the South American market, too, opening an office in Quito, Ecuador.
WHO WE’RE HOPING TO MEET: New partners, innovative startups and interesting hoteliers that want to get educated about the latest developments in the industry.
GIMMONIX (TT835)
gimmonix.com
WHAT WE DO: Founded in 2010, Gimmonix provides a reservations solution that helps travel businesses minimise waste and maximise performance. Our cutting-edge, cloud-based products empower leading travel brands to stay competitive in today’s cut-throat travel space, and help distributors and suppliers increase their revenue and boost efficiency through automated mapping technology, API connectivity and profit optimisation tools.
WHAT’S NEW: We have recently signed with major new clients across multiple products such as Expedia Partner Solutions, Almundo and Flight Centre, launched our new
Reservation Works solution and doubled in size – taking major steps towards establishing ourselves as a palpable force within the industry, culminating in our presence at WTM London this year.
WHO WE’RE HOPING TO MEET: Online and offline travel agencies, hotel suppliers as well as tour operators and TMCs: basically anyone who sells hotels. We have the mindset that there is always something more to learn and improve upon, in order to continue to innovate and create revolutionary solutions. The Gimmonix team looks forward to consulting and working with you on questions and ideas. Visit our stand to discuss more.
■ Phocuswright is exhibiting at Travel Forward on stand TT700
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