AI-Powered Itinerary: Google's Travel Revolution

Google has launched a new itinerary planning feature that could transform the travel industry, helping travelers better customize their trips. These features are available in Gemini, Search and Maps and analyze large amounts of data to streamline the travel planning process and provide tailored recommendations to users.

A Salesforce report found that 69% of travelers are more loyal to hospitality brands that personalize their experiences with AI. Hospitality businesses should evaluate and develop a strategy that incorporates predictive and generative AI to enhance engagement, maximize visibility, and generate more revenue.

The AI-Driven Travel Revolution

Google's AI-powered tools not only allow consumers to research and plan their trips more quickly, but they also enable travelers to tailor their itineraries to their unique preferences, interests, and needs. Google's itinerary builder can assist with trip planning by providing personalized suggestions like kid-friendly attractions or LGBTQ+-friendly hotels.

With Google’s foray into AI-centered travel planning, it will become more important than ever for travel-related businesses to incorporate large language models (LLMs) into their marketing strategy. Leveraging LLMs allows hotels, airlines, and other travel-related businesses to improve their personalization and brand messaging to ensure they are targeting the right audience. Additionally, use of LLMs can improve brands' customer experience and overall consumer engagement.

Understanding Google's New Travel Features

Google's new AI-powered travel features can give travelers an enhanced travel planning experience. These allow users to access travel-related services in one place, improving their experience.

Integrated Platform Functionality

With an improved platform that incorporates Gemini, Google Search and Maps, users don't need to open multiple websites or apps. AI-driven itinerary generation allows users to input travel dates, interests and destinations. The platform then recommends attractions or restaurants that fit given preferences and current travel booking trends. Whether you want a tropical holiday or a family vacation, Google can suggest an enjoyable experience.

Hotel Price Drop Alerts

The hotel price-drop alerts give you visibility into fluctuating room rates by allowing you to receive email notifications when room prices fall. Much like Google’s flight alerts, the hotel alerts offer real-time information to help you make informed decisions around travel dates or destinations.

Optimizing for AI: Your Brand's Presence Score

Google’s evolution of travel-related AI tools makes it more important than ever for travel brands to have visibility into how LLMs are representing them. Further’s Presence Score is a metric used to assess a brand's visibility in LLMs. A high presence score means your business is featured more often, with a positive sentiment, in LLM outputs as compared to competitive brands. A lower Presence Score can be indicative of low visibility and poor sentiment in LLMs and can lead to loss of brand credibility and trust. 

Factors Influencing Presence Score

Factors that improve a brand's Presence Score include:

• Data on online listings
• User reviews and ratings
• Brand mentions and sentiment analysis
• Data structure for LLM construction

Strategies for Improvement

The following are examples of actions brands can take to aim to improve their Presence Score: 

• Regularly update your Google Business Profile and other online listings
• Monitor brand mentions on social media 
• Create high-quality data for LLMs to get accurate outputs
• Update your site markdown to make data more LLM-friendly

Hospitality Brands' Use of Owned Generative Experiences

In addition to understanding what LLMs are saying about your brand, businesses must also consider leveraging their own generative experiences by providing personalized recommendations for their guests. Powered by machine learning, a generative experience enables a business to analyze user preferences and data to provide tailored recommendations to its guests. Generative experiences can be leveraged to help hospitality businesses gain a deeper understanding of their market, allowing them to better evaluate their marketing strategy to increase their bottom line.

For example, a hotel brand can offer a generative experience on its app or website to help travelers determine which property suits their specific preferences. These experiences can range from AI-powered conversational experiences that provide instant customer service and personalized recommendations to dynamic content generation that tailors website displays to individual user profiles. Successfully implementing these features requires a robust data strategy to collect, analyze, and utilize customer data ethically and effectively, ensuring both personalization and privacy. Prospective guests are more likely to book directly with your brand (vs. using third-party platforms) if your website provides all of the tools they need to ensure a positive travel experience. 

Strategic Implementation of AI Tools

Do you want more revenue for your travel-related business? A thoughtful and well-defined AI strategy can enhance customer experience and improve booking conversions.

Hospitality Brand Applications

How hotels can increase bookings.

Are you managing a hotel? AI can help streamline a customer's booking process and offer real-time room availability and pricing. You can also gain essential details about each customer and their preferences, helping you create a better experience for them in the future.

How travel agencies can enhance their value proposition.

Stand out from the competition by using AI to offer personalized itineraries and expert advice. AI can provide daily activity suggestions or recommend restaurants to visit. By incorporating Google Maps, travelers can better explore nearby destinations.

How cruise lines can boost customer engagement.

Cruise lines can leverage virtual assistants or conversational experiences to provide around-the-clock service and real-time information to customers. Knowing customer preferences also helps them develop a more effective marketing strategy that will drive more revenue and enhance customer experience.

Leveraging Price Drop Alerts

Real-time price drop alerts enable users to save more money on their bookings. This can build trust and encourage them to do more business with you in the future. You can also maximize your business's profit through revenue management and using AI to analyze data and develop a competitive pricing strategy.

The Importance of Personalized Experiences and Human Interaction

Leveraging AI can be a winning strategy for both travel brands and travelers themselves. However, it is essential to balance AI with human interaction since AI can’t offer that personal touch that makes travel memorable and personal. Human interaction to support a customer’s specialized needs, provide local insights and recommendations, and give a personal touch remains critical to building trust and loyalty with consumers. 

Future Trends and Adaptation

Predictions on the future of AI in the travel industry predict widespread adaptation and utilization of tools like Google's AI-powered features. To stay competitive, travel brands should leverage new technologies to improve brand visibility and success. Navigating and implementing AI can be overwhelming and if it is beyond your current business's capabilities, consult with Further’s team of AI experts to assess your current online presence and start implementing AI strategies that drive conversions and revenue.