AI won’t fix the ‘broken trip’ experience in travel: Skyscanner CEO

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Travel is undergoing a shift and while artificial intelligence is revolutionizing trip planning by providing tailored options for everyone, it may not help solve the deeper issues within the overall experience, the chief of a global travel search platform said. According to John Mangelaars, CEO of Skyscanner, policy decisions across the world—rather than technology alone—will drive changes in the sector.

In an interview with Mint during his visit to India this week, Mangelaars advised against over-reliance on AI. He said the trip experience for a traveller is still broken because flight and car bookings, for instance, are largely done on separate platforms, and this is not something that AI can fix. “What is really broken is not so much the way we book it, I think, the way we experience it.

When you see the number of people using AI today, like to explore and plan and get ideas for their travel, that's where AI is very strong and can really help with that, like tailoring the information, but AI cannot help solve things like degrees of separation and ease of travel. That needs to come from policy," Mangelaars said. He said India is a focal point in this evolution as the country's population, led by millennials, is increasingly opting for flights over trains and is eager to explore destinations abroad.

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