Excuse the pun, but it’s been a turbulent few years for the travel sector.
As we enter the year 2025, the COVID-19 pandemic may seem a distant memory, but its impact on the travel sector was severe.
The travel bans and mass holiday cancellations led to a significant decline in trust in the sector.
Yet, the industry has fought hard to win back that trust over the past few years.
Indeed, the Institute of Customer Service’s UK Customer Satisfaction Index Report for July 2024 ranked “tourism” fourth out of the 13 industries surveyed.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s Travel Study for 2024 revealed that the airline industry achieved a record-high customer satisfaction score of 77. Meanwhile, “lodgings” also experienced a three percent year-on-year improvement.
In short, the travel customer experience sector seems to be trending in the right direction, making it a prime target for a CX boost, and Booking.com is grabbing the GenAI bull by its horns.
Booking.com’s GenAI Story
Like many businesses, Booking.com is looking to generative AI (GenAI) to help strengthen and expand its CX offering.
Late last year, the travel behemoth introduced a number of new and revamped AI-powered features, all aimed at delivering “more tailored and time-saving solutions for travelers.”
Chief among these new features is its Smart Filter tool, which allows travelers to describe their ideal property in their own words.
Whereas previously, users had to manually filter search results to find their desired accommodation option, they can now ask for exactly what they want.
For example, a customer may type: “Apartments in Barcelona with a kitchen, onsite gym, a rooftop bar, and a sea view.”
The Smart Filter uses GenAI to scan Booking.com’s inventory and apply relevant filters to provide a tailored list of options, streamlining the search process and saving time.
For Joe Futty, VP of Product Marketplace at Booking.com, it is the tool’s personalization capabilities that really spark the imagination. He said:
“Our journey with AI for over a decade has always been about leveraging technology to make travel more intuitive and personalized, helping us fulfill our mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world.
With GenAI, we’re not just enhancing the trip planning process—we’re facilitating more tailored experiences that adapt and respond to travelers’ needs faster than ever before.
Booking.com’s Property Q&A feature works in a similar fashion by allowing travelers to ask specific questions about a property, such as the number of EV charging points or a hotel’s pet policy.
GenAI then helps retrieve relevant details from listings, customer reviews, and even photos, providing answers to help customers make confident and informed booking decisions.
Interestingly, both of these features complement a trend highlighted in a recent McKinsey & Company travel survey.
The research found that most travelers prefer planning their own trips, with only 17 percent using a travel agent in the past year.
The top reasons cited are the desire for full control over itineraries and the enjoyment of the planning process. Research even suggests that trip anticipation can bring more happiness than the trip itself.
In providing customers with a more sophisticated and seamless travel planning tool, Booking.com facilitates the prevailing desires of modern travelers.
What’s Next for GenAI and Travel?
While customer reviews and feedback can be invaluable in helping travelers decide whether a hotel/apartment is the right fit for their specific needs, they quite often contain a lot of unnecessary and unhelpful information.
Many of us will have experienced the frustration of flicking through hundreds of variations of ‘great stay’ or ‘everything was perfect’ when trying to find something more informative.
Booking.com is looking to address this issue through its GenAI Reviews.
Currently still in the experimentation phase, the tool will use GenAI to analyze reviews and provide customers with tailored summaries that highlight “what matters most,” such as details like parking or accessibility.
As well as the Reviews feature, Futty also hinted at other areas in which the company will look to deploy GenAI moving forward:
Looking ahead, we’re excited about our future plans, where GenAI will play a proactive role in managing trips, helping travelers navigate disruptions like flight cancellations with real-time solutions, making the entire travel experience smoother and more seamless.
While it does so, Booking.com will consider how GenAI can support its contact center teams. In doing so, it – like many other brands – may seek inspiration from CX Today’s article: 25 Use Cases for Generative AI In Customer Service
