Artificial Intelligence in Tourism

Abstract

Artificial intelligence in tourism activities opens a bundle of emerging applications for tourists and companies. This chapter aims to delineate the stages of the tourist journey and the usage of four types of intelligence suggested in the literature: mechanical, analytical, intuitive, and empathetic. Based on these two ideas, the authors propose a useful framework for disentangling the different types of current and future applications of AI in tourism. Each stage involves multiple suppliers with different types of AI applications, and its adoption will ultimately rely on tourist trust and, therefore, willingness to share data and the use of robotics and other AI forms. The chapter ends with some trends and reflections on the expansion of AI in tourism that pivot around these ideas: job replacement and flexible operations; mobile-centric approach; data integration and analytics; revenue management and customer interactions tension; (v) neuroscientific tools for AI in tourism.