Speech recognition in the travel industry

Speech recognition in the travel industry is still in the nascent stages of development. While its use is growing exponentially year by year, it remains a relatively new phenomenon. In the near future, digital advertisers are expected to invest greater and greater amounts of money into voice searches.

Some uses

Voice searching has several uses in the travel industry. It can be used to offer targeted ads and give users reminders and information regarding their upcoming trips.

Voice searching offers practical uses as well. Typing is not the most efficient means of communication at the best of times, let alone while one is on the move, especially in foreign lands. Voice searching can make things easier and more convenient in these contexts, providing information to travelers quickly, making travel more hassle-free, allowing users to easily make bookings and get local information, generating a smooth experience. Technology hasn’t advanced far enough to offer such advantages as yet, but it is bound to do so sooner rather than later.

Hotels and speech recognition technology

Industry experts suggest that speech recognition technology is nearly certain to be among the next big technologies in the hospitality space. Hotels are expected to adopt it, making it a feature of their guestrooms, allowing guests to control all the various functions inside a room through voice-based instructions, functions like moving the blinds and adjusting the temperature and switching the lights on and off, all simply through verbal commands. Speech recognition technology also has applications for online mobile bookings. Google revealed in 2016 that 20% of its total mobile inquiries were voice searches. Hoteliers can therefore expect this technology to become increasingly popular in the years ahead.

Travel reservations and speech recognition technology

As far as making travel reservations is concerned, the use of voice recognition technology, as offered by products like Google Home and Amazon Echo, is still in its infancy. People still most make their online bookings through typing and screen interfaces. However, having said that, voice recognition technology is probably the way forward as far as making travel reservations is concerned.

Some problems with speech recognition technology in the travel industry

There are a few problems with speech recognition technology as far as it pertains to travelling. The first of these is a privacy problem. How comfortable are users with having devices listen to them on an extensive basis, both at home and away?

A second problem has to do with the monopoly that a small number of service providers have on the service. The four main players in the speech recognition technology game are Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. These companies determine the results of searches, which could spell trouble for travel firms. This is the most worrying aspect about speech recognition technologies. The reason it puts travel firms in trouble is because the big names in voice search could, at some point, start selling the opportunity to be listed in the results, starting a scramble for the top stops on search results.

Check out some other industries integrating speech recognition.

Speech Recognition in Grocery Shopping      Speech Recognition in Cars

Speech Recognition in Customer Service        The Future of Speech Recognition Technology