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In my previous post, I talked about the effects of generative AI on the travel and hospitality industry. As mentioned in the post, there are important ethical questions related to biases and stereotypes that should be considered.

A lot of the data in Generative AI is currently from Western sources which can cause a lack of diversity of race, ethnicity, beliefs and so on. Systems that are trained iwith Western data, they will only be able to produce recommendations based on this data. It is possible that the system then discriminates against a group of people or even shares stereotypical recommendations based on assumptions that it has made (Dogru et al., 2023). In the travel and hospitality industry, this can become an issue when Tripnotes.ai would only recommend spa’s, shopping malls and nail salons to female customers. Such recommendations are unethical and reinforce stereotypes. Following from Tripnotes.ai’s privacy policy, their recommendations are influenced by the data that they have collected about you. There is a chance that these recommendations are then influenced by bias and stereotypes. This can have severe negative impacts on the use of generative AI in the travel and hospitality industry.

To minimize the risk and possibility of such bias and stereotypes, Marinucci, Mazzuca and Gangemi (2022) suggest setting up a so called ‘’wordnet’’ which is an online tool that allows the addition of several sources of data to link relationships between used terms. Such a tool can help to weaken the relation between women and spa’s, de-biasing algorithms as it goes. It also creates more transparency for users, that can see what relationships are assumed.

As the ethical questions are addressed and we are aware of the bias, generative AI can be incredibly helpful in the travel and hospitality industry. It can make better, more personalized and less costly travel recommendations. For my next trip, I am looking forward to using Tripnotes.ai for some inspiration, are you?

Sources:

Dogru, T., Line, N., Mody, M., Hanks, L., Abbott, J. A., Acikgoz, F., Assaf, A., Bakir, S., Berbekova, A., Bilgihan, A., Dalton, A., Erkmen, E., Geronasso, M., Gomez, D., Graves, S., Iskender, A., Ivanov, S., Kizildag, M., Lee, M., … & Zhang, T. (2023). Generative artificial intelligence in the hospitality and tourism industry: Developing a framework for future research. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 10963480231188663.

Marinucci, L., Mazzuca, C., & Gangemi, A. (2023). Exposing implicit biases and stereotypes in human and artificial intelligence: state of the art and challenges with a focus on gender. AI & SOCIETY, 38(2), 747-761.

Tripnotes.ai. (2019) Privacy Policy [Terms and Conditions]. Consulted from https://welco.me/privacy.

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Planning a trip soon? Perhaps try Tripnotes.ai! This is a travel planner that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to generate a plan for any kind of trip (day, weekend, week) to any kind of place. In just a few seconds you get complete plans for any trip. The plans are even personalized, Tripnotes.ai’s privacy policy clearly states that it collects your data when you interact with its services and uses this to customize content and improve the services to create plans that are more to your liking (Tripnotes.ai, 2019).

In a study by Huang et al. (2022), it turned out that AI applications that provide enhanced and more personalized services are easily and widely adopted by consumers. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that AI will have a great impact on the travel and hospitality industry. Effective implementation of AI based on personal information can create several advantages for consumers in the form of better and more personalized recommendations. I myself was really impressed by the detailed plan that Tripnotes.ai created for me, especially since I put in some really detailed instructions. For hospitality service providers it can cause lowers costs and increased productivity (Huang et al., 2022).

However, there are some important legal considerations. According to Dogru et al. (2023), personal information can lead to improved customer experience but it will also lead to more regulation. Systems like Tripnotes.ai and virtual chatbots rely on data that might include sensitive and personal information like credit card information, browsing history and your location. Furthermore, Tripnotes.ai uses the content that you post during your trip for recommendations to other users. This leads to ethical considerations, who owns your data and how may it be used? And the most important, is it possible for users to opt out and keep their data to themselves?

In my next post I will go into more detail about these ethical considerations and the biases and stereotypes that generative AI in the travel and hospitality industry may cause.

Sources:

Dogru, T., Line, N., Mody, M., Hanks, L., Abbott, J. A., Acikgoz, F., Assaf, A., Bakir, S., Berbekova, A., Bilgihan, A., Dalton, A., Erkmen, E., Geronasso, M., Gomez, D., Graves, S., Iskender, A., Ivanov, S., Kizildag, M., Lee, M., … & Zhang, T. (2023). Generative artificial intelligence in the hospitality and tourism industry: Developing a framework for future research. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 10963480231188663.

Huang, A., Chao, Y., de la Mora Velasco, E., Bilgihan, A., & Wei, W. (2022). When artificial intelligence meets the hospitality and tourism industry: an assessment framework to inform theory and management. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, 5(5), 1080-1100.

Tripnotes.ai. (2019) Privacy Policy [Terms and Conditions]. Consulted from https://welco.me/privacy.