This month, an 11-year-old startup called Flyr raised the largest single round of venture capital for a travel tech company in years: A total package of nearly $300 million.
Booking.com, Amex GBT, Airbnb, Tripadvisor: Travel Execs on AI
14.08.2024 - 17:53 / skift.com / Brian Chesky / Glenn Fogel / Justin Dawes / Matthew Goldberg
Executives of top travel companies continue to emphasize that AI will transform the industry — even if it’s taking longer than expected.
While executive tend not to talk publicly about AI as often as they did in 2023, many CEOs of the biggest travel companies still are.
Below are comments about AI during earnings calls this month by execs at Booking Holdings, Amex GBT, Airbnb, and Tripadvisor.
Glenn Fogel, president and CEO of Booking Holdings, has a vision for what he calls the “connected trip.” It’s the idea of a seamless travel experience, with the consumer being able to book all parts of a trip in one place, and each supplier having easy access to that traveler’s data.
Fogel believes the latest advancements of AI are key to making that dream a reality.
David Thompson, chief information officer for Amex GBT, discussed in detail how the company is moving AI pilots into the implementation phase. It’s a component of $100 million in savings opportunities the company expects to realize this year.
The business travel agency said earlier this year that it had assembled a team focused on implementing AI across the company.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said it will take years to rebuild Airbnb into a fully AI-powered digital travel concierge that learns and adapts to each individual user.
Last year, the Airbnb CEO told Skift CEO Rafat Ali the company would be “rebuilding the entire app with AI at the center” by May 2024.
TripAdvisor first released its AI-powered trip planner, Trips, in July 2023 and has made updates since then.
Matthew Goldberg, president and CEO of Tripadvisor, said that travelers who have used the tool have generated an average of 15 times more revenue than TripAdvisor’s platform-wide average. The company recently added 20 new languages and 30 new regions to the tool, and it has scaled AI-powered review summaries for restaurants and experiences.
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