Getting AI to Notice You Is Just Half the Travel Battle

Photo by Pexels.com

NEWSWEEK

Travel has been democratized. Apparently, nobody bothered to tell the algorithms. Today, you can book a flight, reserve a hotel and find a restaurant halfway around the world before finishing your morning coffee.

For Avelo Airlines, the problem isn't getting people to travel. It's getting the algorithm to show them there are other ways to get there.

Avelo Airlines Founder, Chairman and CEO Andrew Levy knows the problem well. “Our business is focused on primarily secondary airports in large metropolitan areas,” he told the audience gathered at Newsweek's New Destinations World Summit in Las Vegas.

Avelo's pitch is what Levy calls “affordable convenience,” giving travelers access to, “a small, easy-used airport,” rather than wrestling with one of the giant airports where finding your gate can feel like qualifying for an Olympic event.

But there’s a catch: “If the algorithm doesn't know that these airports have commercial service, you can't get people to find out," he explained.

Avelo flies to destinations including Florida's most tourist-friendly cities like Fort Lauderdale, Fort Meyers, Lakeland, Sarasota, Tampa, Daytona Beach, West Palm Beach and Key West. Las Vegas, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta, Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Philadelphia also have scheduled Avelo takeoffs and landings.

Once travelers find Avelo, Levy said, “people love what we do.” The payoff isn't simply another airline ticket. “People save not just money, but they're also saving time [by flying to a secondary market airport],” Levy said. “It encourages more travel.”

Google can steer consumers through search results or algorithms that recommend destinations based on their interests. For an airline operating outside the traditional airport ecosystem, getting discovered can be the hardest part. Discovery matters.

That dovetails with research by R&R Partners CEO Michon Martin that asked not simply where people wanted to travel, but what they wanted from the experience. “What we found was fascinating,” Martin said. “Fifty-four percent of these folks talked about the experience of deep travel.”

Deep travel, Martin explains, means meeting people, discovering different cultures and having experiences that change you. “Travel is not a transaction,” Martin said. “Travel is transformation.”

And apparently transformation is habit-forming. Travelers bring home “the clothes, the food, the art,” Martin said. Then “they then booked more trips.”

That's where AI enters the picture.

Levy sees an opportunity for travelers to get “far more nuanced answers by asking your favorite AI friend,” while Martin believes AI can help understand travelers beyond the limitations of traditional surveys. “Do you like to travel on a scale of one to 10? isn't enough,” Martin said. “What do you think about Paris? I love it. It gets hot, but that doesn't give you a lot of information.”

Instead, R&R's AI platform has a conversation with travelers, with “every question after that” based on the answer received. “We can drill all the way down to determine exactly what they're planning to do next,” Martin said.

But Levy sees a catch. As AI becomes increasingly personalized, “you can get chained to who you are and what you like.”

And there's the irony: AI could open the world while quietly shrinking it, feeding us more of what we already like. The trick isn't getting AI to recommend a trip. It's getting it to surprise us. Otherwise, your artificial travel agent isn't expanding your horizons. It's just making your rut easier to book.