AI tips

TravelNet Solutions laid off around 15 employees Thursday, roughly 7.5% of its 200-member workforce, a decision the CEO said was about shifting resources toward engineering and its core property management business.

Tourists who need help in Scotland won’t be able to turn to a visitor information center: Visit Scotland is shutting down its 25 locations across the country over the next two years.

Trivago has brought back a key executive from its December 2016 IPO – there are now four leaders from the old guard running the Germany-based hotel metasearch outfit.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, March 28. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Dublin’s tourism chief thinks AI can replace generic top 10 lists and travel guides – at least that’s one of the potential outcomes of his group’s new project with OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.

Airbnb several years ago had the ambition to be a “super brand for travel.” There was talk of an Airbnb flights feature, as well as restaurants, boutique hotels and experiences. But the pandemic forced it to refocus on its core business of short-term rental stays.

Before I got a 9-to-5, I spent a good chunk of my 20s freelancing while traveling out of a van or working on farms abroad so that I could stay for free weeks at a time.

American Airlines plans to implement Amadeus’ cloud-based accounting system to track passenger sales.

Hyatt is one of the world’s fastest-growing hotel groups, and we found a handful of notable details in its annual 10-K filing.

Why pay Google even more to acquire customers when your company can open travel agency storefronts, and counsel customers to book trips online?

Air Canada was on Wednesday ordered to compensate a passenger who was misled by its online chatbot.

On the back of its November acquisition of GamePlanner.AI, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said his company can create a new AI interface, and that it will help transform Airbnb into a “cross-vertical company” like Amazon or Apple.

It was another busy week for travel startup funding, and this time it was all early rounds with lower amounts.

A revamped Trivago Guy campaign, this one using just one actor whose monologue is powered by AI, is getting a mixed reaction in the 20 or so markets it’s running in around the world.

Six Flags is partnering with Google, Dell, and a group of other tech companies to integrate artificial intelligence and add a metaverse experience.

It’s been just over a year since ChatGPT launched, and everyone gets that artificial intelligence will have a huge impact on businesses in every industry, including travel. Less clear is the timeline and where the changes will hit most.

The travel industry has made enormous progress in its rebound from the pandemic this year, but it still faces several hurdles in its quest to make a full recovery — such as Chinese outbound travel not yet hitting pre-Covid levels.

What is the future of travel? Answering that is Skift’s editorial mission, and the release of our annual Megatrends is core to that mission.

Some business travelers whose employers are Uber for Business clients will no longer have to email or take screenshots of their Uber rides or Uber Eats receipts when submitting their expense reports, Uber said Tuesday.

There’s already is a tug of war between corporations that want their employees back into the office full-time, and workers who don’t want to give up working from home or as digital nomads.

Generative AI is already prompting travel businesses to retool internal operations and release new products.