Introduction
As marketers well know, choosing the right title for your content is more important than the content itself. You could write an insightful article with impeccable style, but no one will read it if it doesn’t feature a catchy headline. Even if we like to pretend to be sophisticated and rational beings, we can’t help but judge books by their covers – literally. This is even more true in the digital age we are living in. We are constantly bombarded by a plethora of conflicting stimuli, to the point that we find it difficult to focus our attention on a particular piece of text for more than a few minutes. If you’re dedicating your time to this article instead of watching a reel on Instagram, it must mean I was able to come up with an amazing title, right? Unfortunately, I can’t pat myself on the back for this achievement because it was suggested to me by an AI, just like all the phrases enclosed in quotation marks that you will find in this post. At first glance, it seems that chatbots can be good copywriters, but what else can they do? In particular, can ChatGPT be useful for professionals in the travel industry?
If you’re looking for strategies and tools to streamline your business during the difficult economic conjuncture we’re living, check out our latest guide: How to sell more during a recession.
There’s a good chance you’re already familiar with ChatGPT, the state-of-the-art chatbot (or, to be more precise, language model) launched by OpenAI in November 2022. If you’ve already tinkered with it, you may still have some lingering questions. For example, what are the advantages of using ChatGPT? What are the main drawbacks? Are there other AI-powered tools that can automate menial tasks? With the help of my new AI friend, I will clarify all your doubts in the following paragraphs.
What’s ChatGPT?
Before discussing if ChatGPT is a viable solution for professionals in the travel industry, it’s essential to clarify what it really is. When I asked it to provide a comprehensive answer to the question, I received this answer:
“ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI. It is based on the transformer architecture and has been trained on a massive amount of text data to generate human-like responses to a wide range of questions and prompts. It is designed to perform a variety of natural language processing tasks, including text generation, translation, question answering, and summarization, among others.
For example, you could ask ChatGPT about the weather in a specific city, and it would respond with the current temperature and conditions. Or, you could ask it a question about history, and it would provide a comprehensive answer. The goal of ChatGPT is to make it easier for people to find information and get answers to their questions without having to search through multiple websites or books. It can also be integrated into conversational interfaces such as chatbots, allowing organizations to provide a more personal and interactive experience for their customers. The technology behind ChatGPT continues to advance, and it is expected to have a significant impact on various industries, including customer service, e-commerce, and marketing, among others.”
What are the main drawbacks of ChatGPT?
It is no accident that I asked the popular chatbot for a detailed answer to my previous question, because its limitations become more apparent when it tries to provide an in-depth analysis of any given topic. Below, we’ll see why using ChatGPT may not be the best idea for professionals in the travel industry.
ChatGPT is not so intelligent after all
ChatGPT is an outstanding technical achievement and one of the most advanced AI tools out there, but it is still computer software at its core. This means that it is not able to “think” as a human being does, it can’t develop original thoughts or insights based on the information it knows, and it tends to be extremely formal.
As a language model, it has been trained on a humongous text dataset and uses statistical techniques to learn common patterns in a given language. What ChatGPT does is predict what words it should use given a specific input, meaning that it can’t really “speak” in the most traditional sense of the term, but it’s more than capable of imitating human language. To give you an example, a simple language model trained on a dataset of English sentences, when given the prompt “The cat is sitting on the,” would generate a word that comes after the aforementioned line of text in most sentences, like “floor” or “mat.” Such language models always generate words that appear frequently in most sentences after a given line of text. ChatGPT is more advanced than that and can elaborate full answers to questions, write longforms, and much more.
ChatGPT may lie to you
Technically, ChatGPT can’t lie, given that it lacks both a moral system and the ability to consciously deceive the people it’s talking with. As we have seen, it is also unable to think and discern what’s true from what is false. I’ll repeat it for emphasis: ChatGPT can only use statistical probability to pick – given a certain input – relevant data from its archive. What I’m trying to say is that our beloved AI-powered chatbot may not lie, but surely it can provide wrong pieces of information if they’re part of its knowledge repository.
Take another read at ChatGPT’s answer to the following instruction, “Please tell me in detail who you are and what you do.” Got the answer? Did you notice that it contains an inaccurate statement? In fact, it’s also not true that it can tell you the current weather conditions and temperature for a location! If you don’t believe me, give it a try straight ahead. We can only speculate about why it told me it would be able to perform such a task. In all likelihood, giving information about the weather is referred to as a typical example of what AI can do in multiple texts featured in its database. The bottom line is that you should double-check everything ChatGPT says, especially if you’re asking it to create content that your customers will be reading and sharing.
ChatGPT will give you outdated information
If you’ve talked with ChatGPT about recent events, you may have noticed that it can provide you with outdated information. This is because, as a language model, it can’t access the internet to look for the latest news. It can only make use of the data that is already present in its database, which was last updated at the end of 2021. As you can imagine, updating this gigantic dataset in real time wouldn’t be feasible, given that the AI needs plenty of training time to elaborate it correctly. For this reason, using ChatGPT to create marketing content for your tour & activity business can be a little bit tricky. It can help you craft a fantastic headline for your latest blog post, but – for example – it can’t compose a whole article dedicated to the latest tourism trends with correct and updated info.
What are the advantages of using ChatGPT in the travel industry?
According to ChatGPT itself:
“ChatGPT can offer several advantages for tour and activity providers:
- Data analysis: ChatGPT can process large amounts of data, such as customer interactions and booking history, and use that information to generate insights and make predictions. This can help tour and activity providers make data-driven decisions about pricing, promotions, and product development.
- Automated marketing: ChatGPT can be used to create and distribute targeted marketing campaigns to customers. This can help tour and activity providers reach new audiences and drive more bookings.
- Product development: ChatGPT can be used to analyze customer feedback and preferences, helping tour and activity providers understand what types of tours and activities are most in demand. This information can then be used to develop new products and improve existing offerings.
- Increased scalability: By automating many routine tasks, ChatGPT can help tour and activity providers scale their operations and handle a growing customer base without adding additional staff.
- Improved customer experience: By providing personalized and proactive customer interactions, ChatGPT can help tour and activity providers create a better customer experience, which can lead to increased loyalty and repeat business.
- Customer service: ChatGPT can be used to provide quick and efficient customer service by answering frequently asked questions and helping customers make bookings. This can help reduce the workload of customer service representatives and improve customer satisfaction.”
Other than ChatGPT, what are some useful tools for professionals in the travel industry?
Is ChatGPT really useful for businesses in the travel industry? In my humble opinion, AI-powered tools aren’t yet polished enough to be used in a professional setting. At the moment, their limitations far outweigh the perks, given that you can’t trust the accuracy of the information they provide. On the other hand, compared to AI bots, automation software is a more reliable solution for those who want to streamline their workflow and processes. For instance, booking systems are programs that allow digital reservation management, online ticket sales, and connection to online travel agencies (OTAs). Regiondo, the leading player in this field, is an effective tool that can streamline your business operations and eliminate the need for paper. Furthermore, it can save you money by automating repetitive tasks, which is particularly useful if you have limited staff and difficulty hiring new employees. Here are some sleek processes you can implement with a modern booking system:
- Synchronize your offers and availability across multiple OTAs and resellers through the channel manager.
- Send automatic customer notifications for bookings, cancellations, and other transactions.
- Utilize automated feedback requests after each booking to increase customer reviews.
- Enable 24/7 online bookings without any manual intervention.
It’s worth noting that an all-in-one booking system already includes all the necessary tools for running a tour and activity business, from the channel manager to the POS, thus saving you the cost of purchasing separate tools from different providers.
Conclusion
As we can see, ChatGPT is a technical marvel, but it’s not reliable enough to be used by professionals in the travel industry. Luckily, there are other solutions to help you in your daily work. A booking system can effectively reduce expenses by simplifying repetitive tasks, automating the reservation process, and easily managing multiple distribution channels. To gain a deeper understanding of the benefits of using Regiondo, the premier booking software for tour operators and activity providers, you can schedule a free demonstration with one of our specialists.
