Travel as a “memory industry” driven by tech advancements

The experts came together at Phocuswright Europe to talk about travel tech trends around the world, things like generative artificial intelligence, machine learning and the metaverse.

So it might have seemed jarring when one of the panelists on Center Stage defined travel in terms that evoke photo prints taped into paper scrapbooks.

“It [travel] is a memory industry,” proclaimed Wolfgang Krips, the senior vice president for corporate strategy at Amadeus IT Group. “We’re creating memories.”

But Krips wasn’t looking back when Phocuswright managing director and co-moderator Pete Comeau asked panelists to share a tech trend that most excited them; Krips was looking ahead – way ahead.

“The future of travel could be very much that you don’t travel at all, and that you basically create only memories,” Krips said. “It would obviously be in the far future. It would solve a lot of problems with respect to sustainability and overtourism and stuff like that because you just don’t go there.”

The line drew a wave of laughter across the auditorium in Barcelona, and Krips pressed on, warming to his role of provoking the audience of travel professionals to deeper thinking on the issue.

“It’s a bit funny,” he conceded, “but if you think about it, during the pandemic, for instance, I interviewed a local city guide who did city tours in Madrid. And the guy said he did all of his tours virtually. So it is possible.”

Fellow panelist Karen Bolda, the senior vice president of product and technology at Expedia Group, doubted this was a future she could embrace.

“I would definitely say travel includes memories, but for me there’s also that human interaction, that human touch,” she said. “I think every person I encounter, I encounter a part of their memories and a part of their background, and I think that changes me in a bigger way.”

Bolda also had the distant future in mind when she offered the tech trend that most excites her, one inspired by thoughts of her children and the need for sustainable travel.

“When you think about clean energy, more efficient jet fuel, all of these – we’re going to keep traveling, obviously. We want to travel. Travel changes the world,” she said. “So how do we do that while also protecting the environment for our future, for our children’s future? And also, one thing I love about it is really immersing yourself and supporting local destinations, local travel and really having authentic experiences, and I think those go together well.”

The third panelist, Iñaki Úriz, CEO at travel tech subscription specialist Caravelo, spoke of a greener future that still featured in-person travel — so long as he doesn’t have to drive himself.

“I’m a big believer and I’m really excited about autonomous vehicles,” Úriz said. “I think that has huge potential to change the way we not only travel but live, to be honest with you. It’s going to change the relationship we have with property of cars and other things. Every single time I walk down the street and I see all those machines lining up just doing nothing … all this waste, I think ideally, at some point, we’ll get rid of. There’s a lot of room for making cities better, getting efficiencies. And I don’t like driving, so I guess I’m hoping this comes sooner rather than later.”

The conversation turned less speculative when co-moderator Siew Hoon Yeoh, founder of WebinTravel and editorial director of Northstar Travel Group Asia, pressed panelists to talk about the industry’s biggest challenges.

Úriz spoke of the difficulty of keeping up with new tech advancements, especially at a smaller startup.

“On the one hand, you have to go very fast, otherwise you’re going to be left behind. If you don’t jump on the AI revolution or whatever it is, others are going to overtake you,” he said. “Now, in parallel, you have to deliver good quality product, enterprise ready, very safe, very secure, very reliable. How do you make those two things work? … That’s a challenge I think we all face.”

Krips pointed to harnessing data, especially customer content, within a swiftly changing regulatory environment.

“Part of my department is the corporate incubator,” he said. “We have one very, very promising initiative that completely fell flat on its face because we weren’t able to manage the customer content and everything that goes with it in order to make this whole stuff compliant.”

Bolda cited a mix of issues, starting with the dual-edged sword of new tech.

“Every new piece of technology, it solves one problem and suddenly it uncovers or exposes a whole different set of problems that you wouldn’t have imagined before,” she said. “Things like security, privacy, government regulations. They didn’t exist before. It’s a new challenge.”

She was just warming up. Bolda said the cost of investing and implementing AI or machine learning initiatives is another consideration. A third? Customer expectations.

“The way that you’re using a new technology, you’ve got to use it in a way so that you’re helping to simplify the experience for your traveler,” she said. “You’re making it better and not making it more frustrating. And I think that can be a challenge because some people like more human interaction and some people like less.”

The panelists also discussed what tech trends they see as the most hyped and under-hyped; the potential for more airlines offering flight subscriptions; things humans do better than machines; the parts of their jobs they wish they could automate; and other problems they wish tech would solve. Watch the full discussion below.