AI can't replace your ‘un-Googleable’ knowledge
The advent of AI was a hot topic at this year's ITT conference, with no less than three sessions exploring the issue. The first came from Amadeus associate director strategy and transformation Clare de Bono, who told delegates AI would define the next "golden era" of travel. "It’s equipping the industry to reimagine what it means to plan, book, manage and experience travel," she said.
However, de Bono was insistent this would not come at the expense of travel agents. "Where's the travel agent in all this?" she posited. "We can’t forget the human element. AI can make great suggestions – it can index millions of web pages and predict where you’re going to point, it can translate from one language to another in real time.
"All that can help you – but you know the un-Googleable stuff. You know what your customers like. You know what their preferences are. You know the ones that have pet hates. You are curating something special."
De Bono said it was vital agents adjusted their mindset from "how is this going to hurt me?" to "how is this going to help me?". "Predicting the death of the travel agent has been going on since the beginning of the internet," she said. "And we’re still here."
Citing McKinsey data, she added the majority of AI's impact on travel would fall in two areas – 60% in the travel and inspiration phases, and 22% in customer service.
Fine-tune your discoverability strategy
Staying with the positive take on the emergence of AI, Thierry Ngutegure – head of data insight at SALT agency – told ITT delegates it was an opportunity for the trade and the wider travel industry to assess and fine-tune its "discoverability" strategy.
Ngutegure said businesses and brands were jumping on new technologies without thinking about their relevance to their customers or audience, such as the rush to launch non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or using AI to "over-optimise" branding or "micro-manage creativity", resulting in a lot of branding becoming homogenous.
"What I really want to focus on is, in the world of travel, where should we be looking when it comes to AI?" he asked. "And I think discovery is really where AI is going to impact a larger portion of our lives and the way that we work."
He said brands should put their specific audience at the centre of their search strategies and use existing knowledge of their behaviours to get ahead of Google's push towards delivering AI-generated responses.
Looking at travel specifically, Ngutegure said up to 10% of cruise and luxury touring queries, and 16% of honeymoon queries, made via Google were returning AI-generated answers. "You can already see the piece of pie Google is taking away when we talk about discoverability and that user journey," he said.
‘Housekeeping’
Ngutegure said brands could combat this by taking a multi-modal approach to their brand identity, with the search giant now placing an increasingly significant focus on consumer reviews and forums.
He advised: "It's even more important than ever to really get a handle on those reviews – get positive reviews from your customers and make sure that that is front and centre in your differentiation strategy."
In addition, he said brands should take a moment to do "a bit of housekeeping" to shape how Google reframes content and resurfaces it to users. "Make sure you have clear imagery, having a style specific to your brand is extremely important. Make sure your data is well structured, whether that be opening times, locations or any other information or data to help answer queries.
"Search is multi-modal – don't ever think it lives in one place."
Ngutegure added it was important brands tapped into platform-specific trends, such as by using trending audio and hashtags on TikTok, and getting trending keywords into titles and captions – whether that's on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram or other social media networks.
We need to get travel recognised as an economic sector
The travel industry needs a £200,000 "war chest" to ensure government – new or current – "recognises travel as an economic sector", Advantage Travel Partnership chief executive Julia Lo Bue-Said told ITT conference delegates.
Lo Bue-Said, who has led on the creation of a UK Outbound Travel lobby group, said the money was needed "to drive policy engagement". She stressed it was vital other industry voices, like ITT and Abta, got involved too, along with the aviation lobby.
"It would be a group inclusive of industry leaders not in there today," said Lo Bue-Said. "All coming together to speak with one voice about the industry with clear messages so in the event of the next crisis, because there always is one, it’s very clear for government who they’re engaging with.
"I think we all saw [during the pandemic] there was the lack of a coherent voice of the industry engaging with politicians at the right level. There was a void."
Lo Bue-Said said despite its more than £80 billion economic contribution, outbound travel still wasn’t being taken seriously as an economic sector. "Hospitality would be talked about, investments, banking, energy," she said. "Aviation might be, and it’s part of our eco-system, but outbound travel won’t. What we’re looking for is recognition."
Asked how much this endeavour would cost, Lo Bue-Said added: "We need to build a war chest of about £200,000. We’re asking organisations to put £10,000 in the pot. It’s not a big commitment, and is an opportunity to do the right thing."
Determine your sustainability narrative – your staff and customers will love it
Henry Dimbleby, founder of the restaurant chain Leon and architect of the UK's National Food Strategy, urged travel businesses to assess and then more clearly define their sustainability narrative, focusing on several aspects where they can achieve change – and sell their staff and customers that narrative.
"Every company should consider the climate, overtourism, waste, biodiversity, water – whatever it may be – and decide each year on just a couple of things, three things you're going to do," said Dimbleby. "Don't let it just be a greenhouse gas measurement.
"You have an obligation to look at that side of your business and think each year about what you're going to do better – your staff will love it, and probably your customers too."
Dimbleby identified biodiversity as the biggest opportunity for travel to capture hearts and minds. "People don't get excited about carbon," he said. "But people love nature. It doesn't have to be active tourist holidays. I think there are all sorts of interesting ways you could weave biodiversity into your narratives. Some hotels in the UK, they're beginning to plant for nature, bringing in butterflies."
Dimbleby added travel should brace for tougher regulation on climate and sustainability issues; travel will, in future, be subject to mandatory carbon accounting, among other regulatory burdens. "This is not going away – you need to get ahead."
Travel ‘frighteningly bad’ at using social media to influence purchases
Dame Irene Hays told conference delegates she was shocked to discover earlier this year that despite travel being well suited to being marketed and sold via social media, it was lagging well behind other purchases like fashion and cosmetics – even dog accessories.
"The frightening thing I learned was how poor travel is at using social media to influence purchases," she said. "People want informality, not a hard sell. They’re tired of one voice, one image. You can put all the offers you like to inspire in front of people, but what they want to do is go and look for it because they’ve just seen something on the telly the day before.
"We know three-quarters of the population who book travel want to do so on social media – that will increase as time goes by. We all know the routes to market are changing radically."
Hays highlighted the impact of social media both on how Hays Travel provides holiday inspiration, and how it then goes on to sell holidays. "[The term] ‘Google it’ is becoming ‘TikTok it’ – there’s huge blurring of the lines across all channels," she said.
"People increasingly want to see the destination they’re going to and get as close to reality as they possibly can. It’s moving away from the formal web experience to the informal social experience. They don’t want to hear things in one voice or one tone."
To emphasise her point, Hays said the agency used more than 60 different dialects "to talk to people on social media about their holidays". "I think social [media] is now the number-one product discovery channel – buying direct via social media is up year-on-year."
Get young talent into the industry – and then fight over them
Day two of the conference featured a session shining a light on 15 years of ITT Future You exploring travel's struggles training, recruiting and retaining new talent, as well as where the next generation of travel industry professionals will come from.
HR professional Claire Steiner, who chairs ITT's education and training committee, said the industry needed to take a collaborative approach. "This is a great space in which to work," she said. "It's not about us and them or one company versus another – we can fight over these people once they in the industry. We have to present a united front and showcase the amazing roles we have for young people."
Steiner said it was vital through initiatives like Future You that the industry engaged teaching and training professionals and worked alongside schools, colleges and universities, several of whom were represented at the conference.
"It's also about making sure the people who teach these [young] people understand what's going on [in the industry]," Steiner continued. "I want them to understand the evolving jobs, the technology jobs, the digital marketing – the ones they don't necessarily think about.
"We need to get these young people in to find out what an amazing industry this is. I promise you, they love it once they hear about it."
‘Exciting, visual industry’
Ant Stone, G Adventures' director of marketing EMEA, said travel could do a better job of promoting itself. "We could be a bit more aggressive," he said. "As an industry, we are very soft, kind, considerate and highly empathetic because of the product we sell. But on recruitment, we could be a bit more aggressive, a bit more cutthroat."
Steiner added: "I think we say this every year – we're not very good at selling ourselves. This is such an exciting, visual industry to be a part of. Yet we fail so fundamentally, I think, time and time again, to project that and make ourselves an industry of choice."
Expect Labour to cosy up to the EU, especially if Trump returns
In discussion with TTG content producer Tom Parry, conference moderator Tim Hames – asked what would potentially be the biggest plus for travel businesses of a change of government – said a Labour administration would likely see the UK cosy up to the EU again, particularly if Donald Trump were to secure what would be a hugely destabilising second term in the White House.
"The biggest potential plus is a much more gentle relationship between the UK and its former leading partners in the European Union under a Starmer-led government than there would be under any Conservative-led government," he said.
"So more chance of flexibility on issues where the EU and the UK grate against each other, that's the big potential win. If Donald Trump does come back, that process will be even more intense – people will be kissing and making up like they never split in the first place."
Hames said the risk inherent in a change of government, given the country's existing spending commitments and the tough global economic and geopolitical landscape, could be an increase in regulation. "There's absolutely no money with which to ease or oil the process of changing society, so the natural temptation is to fall back on increased regulation.
"The great joy of regulation, if you're a politician, is that you can impose it and somebody else gets sent the invoice. While I don't think [shadow chancellor] Rachel Reeves would come into office with any sort of secret plan to double the amount of regulation in society, when you find yourself with no money and demand for change, there's the chance of being boxed in to that extra regulation space."
Travel is a growth sector – it must tell government that story
Columnist, broadcaster and former special advisor to the Labour Party, Ayesha Hazarika, closed out the conference by laying down a challenge to travel. "Your sector is so important," she said. "Whoever wins the next election, you are going to hear the word growth all the time."
Hazarika said should Labour return to power, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and Labour leader Keir Starmer will be searching for ways to pay for reforms that don't involve raising taxes or cutting spending. "So how are they going to pay for things? They say growth. Growth is a partnership between government, ministers, civil servants and businesses. So who is going to help and incoming government achieve growth?
"Your sector is incredibly important to the UK economy. Your sector is a growing sector. It's a sector springing back to life after Covid. It's a sector which has universal appeal. So I think you should go in, whoever wins the next election, and be really confident in what you want from government. Make your demands early, that's when you have time to strike and make your case.
"Your sector is also incredibly good for jobs, and really important for Britain on the global stage post-Brexit as we try to re-establish ourselves. Tourism is a force for good, and tourism is a really important part of the soft power narrative Britain has. So make sure, whoever wins, your sector gets in early, makes the case for why you need attention and why you need hearing."
