Redesigning tourism through digital technology and AI

Javed Ahmed

September 27 is World Tourism Day. UN Tourism has been observing the day with various programmes since 1980. This year, World Tourism Day is also being observed with equal importance across 160 member states of the United Nations. In Bangladesh, the day is being celebrated with a wide range of programmes organised by the Bangladesh Tourism Board, the national tourism organisation under the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism.

Every year, UN Tourism announces a relevant and timely theme for World Tourism Day. Around this theme, meetings, seminars and various programmes are organised worldwide, while thousands of articles and essays are written in different languages. These initiatives are expected to help chart a new direction for the tourism industry and add a new dimension to this largest service sector. Their impact will extend across the entire tourism value chain, helping the industry move another step forward.

This year’s theme, ‘Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence to Redesign Tourism’, has been framed around the promise of using technology appropriately to improve tourism management and make all kinds of services in the industry more accessible to tourism enthusiasts. In our mother tongue, we may understand the UN Tourism theme as ‘Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence for Positive Transformation of the Tourism Industry’. There may be debate over the translation. Any such debate will further enrich both me and my readers.

This year’s central World Tourism Day event will be held in Surf City, El Salvador, a small country in Central America on the Pacific coast. A message from the country’s tourism minister has been published on the UN Tourism website. Along with inviting tourism enthusiasts to visit the country, the message expresses a commitment to building an inclusive and modern tourism industry through ‘technological innovation’ and the appropriate use of artificial intelligence.

We have been witnessing the application of technology in the constantly changing tourism industry for several years. Like the tourism sectors of other countries, some positive changes are also visible in our tourism sector, driven by new and remarkable technological innovations. Digital management is not essentially a domestic matter; it is a universal global system that can connect a tourist within moments to a tourism destination anywhere else in the world. It can introduce tourists to local cultures and communities while they remain at home. Tourism businesses, managers and governments can all remain part of a broader digital framework and establish remarkable connectivity among themselves.

New technological innovations are an ongoing process, but since the emergence of artificial intelligence, its application and use have surpassed all previous developments. It has become part of our social system at remarkable speed. The technology has already become extremely popular among people of all ages within a very short period. It is often said, ‘The internet gives people access to information. AI is increasingly giving people access to intelligence and automation.’ Today, artificial intelligence is no longer viewed simply as a ‘digital technology’; rather, it is being considered a ‘general purpose technology’ and compared with electricity, computers and the internet.

It is not yet possible to say where artificial intelligence will take the socioeconomic reality of the world. Many believe the technology will conquer the future and establish itself as an unprecedented and timeless technology, playing an extraordinary role in bringing positive changes to the existing socioeconomic systems of the entire world. In that case, we must remember, ‘AI shouldn’t replace human hospitality, it should enhance human hospitality.’

What role can artificial intelligence play in a tourism industry built on human affection and care? A look at tourism destinations around the world shows that they have developed through people’s affection, care and empathy. Thousands of years of civilisation and cultural heritage have survived through people’s respect, love and care, and over time these have become major tourism destinations. People travel from country to country in search of history and heritage. These destinations remain vibrant with the footsteps of millions of tourists. Alongside creating employment for millions, they play an undeniable role in strengthening local economies.

Artificial intelligence, science’s latest apparent major innovation, is playing a unique role in developing, expanding and improving a tourism industry built on human affection. Unique digital tourism ecosystems are being developed through digital platforms. Tourists, tourism organisations, airlines, tourism attractions, tour operators, tour guides and all other organisations providing tourism facilities are being connected through a single platform. From anywhere in the world, a tourist can collect all the information about a tourism destination elsewhere in the world while staying at home.

The use of artificial intelligence in destination management has made it easier to analyse tourists’ demands, take advance measures to control excessive tourist arrivals and, above all, apply modern concepts to destination management to make destinations more attractive and tourist-friendly.

Marketing has an immense impact on the desired expansion of the tourism industry. Artificial intelligence is being used to create targeted and attractive content for the international tourism market at a low cost. Predictive analysis is providing forecasts on tourist arrivals at specific destinations, tourists’ spending patterns and potential new markets. AI chatbots, automated check-in, personalised hotel services and smart revenue management have brought modernisation to the hotel sector.

Ensuring sustainable tourism is another global agenda for us (SDG-30). The use of artificial intelligence to monitor the carrying capacity of tourism destinations, waste management, energy security, water use and environmental impacts can help ensure sustainable tourism. Virtual tourism is also developing alongside technological advancement. Before and after visiting tourism centres, historic structures and museums, interested tourists can be offered virtual experiences through AR/VR technology. Digital maps, smart signage, e-marketing, cashless payments and real-time information have also created opportunities to make the tourism industry smarter.

The use of artificial intelligence is also visible in personalised tourism. With its assistance, impressive travel plans are being created based on individual tourists’ interests, budget limitations, available time and travel behaviour. More interestingly, generative AI has added a new dimension to the tourism industry, as it can effortlessly create written content, images, itineraries, promotional content and tourist feedback.

One point must be remembered in this regard: artificial intelligence does not collect information on its own at will. Rather, it gathers information through books, newspapers, research papers, websites, images, videos, audio and government reports created by humans, and then provides that information to its clients. Therefore, to obtain the maximum benefit from artificial intelligence, we need to enrich our own information repositories. Some also describe the tourism industry as a data-driven industry. The richer a country’s tourism-related information repository, the more developed its tourism industry is likely to be.

It can be said that establishing a national data hub is now a demand of the time for formulating data-based tourism policies and plans aimed at bringing positive changes to the tourism industry. An opportunity has emerged to redesign the entire tourism value chain through digital technology and artificial intelligence. With sustainable and inclusive tourism in mind, we need to build a tourism ecosystem that combines rich experiences with artificial intelligence—not only to attract tourists, but also to ensure better tourism experiences, higher tourism revenues, greater participation of local communities and environmental sustainability. Let this be our commitment on this year’s World Tourism Day.

Author: Former Chief Executive Officer, Bangladesh Tourism Board