Expedia, a personal travel website, wants to revolutionize travel and vacation planning by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI).
According to a report published by The Verge on Monday, December 18, the company aims to offer users personalized recommendations to assist them in choosing their next travel destinations.
Expedia intends to expedite the travel planning process and increase direct traffic to its website by employing its extensive collection of flight and hotel data, in addition to evaluating users’ travel preferences, as per the report.
The long-term objective, according to Expedia chief architect and head of data management Rajesh Naidu, is to establish yourself as the go-to resource for consumers to begin their travel search.
The report claims that a lot of people start their trip planning by looking up destinations on search engines like Google, then going to services like Expedia to make travel and hotel reservations.
According to the report, Expedia aims to address this by providing thorough advice and information from the outset.
According to the report, the company sees a day when passengers can book a flight by just selecting their preferred airline and time, with artificial intelligence taking care of the rest. Expedia aims to get users closer to this ideal by providing a one-stop platform for travel planning, which is reminiscent of the role travel agents played before internet booking became common, even though AI cannot yet perform all aspects of travel booking.
According to the report, Expedia’s emphasis on AI-driven recommendations and customized travel planning aims to lessen its dependency on search engines like Google while also improving the user experience. Expedia’s former chief financial officer, Jeff Hurst, testified during the U.S. v. Google antitrust trial that the company did not notice a spike in traffic after the search engine began displaying flights and hotels, even though it was paying Google more for ad space.
According to the report, Expedia stands to benefit financially from eliminating the middleman.
Expedia has been using machine learning algorithms to track flight prices and find hotels, even though the company’s vision of providing all-in-one personalized travel planning is still not fully realized, according to the report. Additionally, it has added tools like a ChatGPT-powered customer support chatbot and a virtual assistant to help with post-booking inquiries from customers.
Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern stated during the company’s most recent earnings call that the company intends to use its AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities to improve the planning and booking process in order to improve the customer experience.
