Online Travel Agencies: Some Solutions to changes in booking and commission attributions

Exploiting the Benefits of Web3 & Blockchain

Imagine this: you've planned your dream vacation down to the last detail, flights and hotels are booked, itinerary is full of adventures. But then, something unexpected happens and you need to change your flight. You approach to the online travel platform (OTA), with some apprehension: Will the change go through smoothly? Will the new flight connect with the hotel reservation? Questions appear, and a knot of anxiety tightens in your stomach. Unfortunately, making changes or adding extras to existing bookings on OTAs can be frustrating. Delays, missing data, and fragmented systems often lead to an infinite list of problems. You, the traveler, face the uncertainty about confirmed changes, lost precious time on hold with customer service, and struggle with the worry that something will happen to jeopardize your much-awaited vacation.

Shridhar Padmanabhan, Sales Vice President at Encora has identified that OTAs and travel providers also face similar challenges. For travel suppliers like airlines and rental car companies, these challenges include missed commissions due to tracking modification issues, declining customer satisfaction due to fragmented experiences, and limited information on changes that hinder service and upselling opportunities. 

This travel change odyssey, full of frustrations for both travelers and the travel industry, demands a new approach that ensures transparency and reduces the anxiety of delays. By examining a structured list of challenges, with Shridhar we’ve identified an ecosystem where all participants have incentives to create a smoother travel experience. Our proposed solution leverages blockchain technology to streamline the travel change process. As a cherry on top of the cake, we'll explore how surfacing technologies like Large Action Models can transform this traditionally difficult journey into a state-of-the-art, user-friendly experience. 

The Use Case: How it solves the challenges for each participant of the Ecosystem

This proposed solution focused on secure data sharing for changes and add-ons. would enable real-time tracking of booking modifications, ensuring all participants (travelers, OTAs, airlines, rental car companies) have access to the latest information.

This blockchain enabled solution can significantly improve the travel booking experience by streamlining change management, ensuring transparency, and reducing friction for all parties involved. Travelers can update bookings with confidence, OTAs can manage commissions effectively, and airlines and rental car companies can adapt their services accordingly. By focusing on core functionalities, this solution offers a practical approach to revolutionize travel booking change management.

Use Case Ecosystem and Incentives

By leveraging Web3 and blockchain capabilities, OTA’s can create a platform that grants all participants real-time access to changes, attributions, loyalty assignments, and customer behavior, based on individual access privileges enhancing a smooth experience for all participants. The chart below describes how the ecosystem will interact and the incentives for each member.

Expanding the model

The proposed secure data sharing platform for travel change management offers a solid foundation. However, to stay ahead of the curve, we suggest exploring and integrating trending technologies and Web3 advancements:

Large Action Models (LAMs)

LAMs are the next evolution of Large Language Models (LLMs). While LLMs excel at generating text, LAMs take it a step further by focusing on execution of tasks. They are designed to understand and complete complex tasks in digital environments.  The Key characteristics of LAMs are:

1. Task-oriented: LAMs are designed to perform specific actions, such as making bookings, suggesting alternatives, and managing travel itineraries.
2. Agency: LAMs can interact with various digital systems and platforms to accomplish their goals.
3. Complex problem-solving: LAMs can handle multi-step tasks and adapt to changing circumstances.

By integrating Large Action Models into the proposed solution to automate specific tasks, the members of this ecosystem can benefit from an enhanced experience. In this way, LAMs can enhance the solution by:

Bridging the Gap Between Travelers and Booking Systems: By integrating LAMs, the solution can offer an enhanced user experience, building upon the improvements already achieved through blockchain. The real-time updates on the secure data ledger address the fragmented booking experience. Additionally, LAMs can streamline the rebooking process, acting as intermediariesbetween all ecosystem members. Key features below:

• Natural Language Understanding: LAMs can accurately comprehend a traveler's request,even if it's expressed in a vague or informal manner, thanks to their advanced natural language processing capabilities.
• Seamless Interactions: By directly interacting with booking systems,LAMs can eliminate the need for travelers to navigate complex interfaces or wait on hold with customer service representatives.
• Personalized Recommendations: LAMs can leverage traveler data from the centralized platform and real-time information to suggest tailored alternatives that align with preferences and budget constraints.

Example: A traveler might say, "I need to change my flight to New York, but I also want to find a hotel near Times Square and rent a car." The LAM could automatically understand the traveler's intent, access their booking information, suggest alternative flights, search for hotels near Times Square, find rental car options, and even book the hotel, guided tour, and rental car on the traveler's behalf. This streamlines the booking process and saves the traveler time and effort.

Proactively Addressing Travel Disruptions. As an integral part of the OTA, LAMs can effectively address this scenario on behalf of OTAs, improving operational costs and enhancing the traveler experience. By reducing claims to airlines and advancing changes to rental car and hotel bookings, LAMs foster better conditions for the entire ecosystem. Main features will be:

• Real-time Monitoring: LAMs can continuously monitor external factors,such as weather conditions, flight delays, and political instability, to anticipate potential disruptions.
• Scenario Planning: Using predictive analytics,LAMs can simulate various scenarios to assess the potential impact of disruptions on travel itineraries.
• Automated Rebooking: LAMs can automatically rebook flights,hotels, rental cars, or other travel components, saving travelers time and effort.

Example: If a flight is delayed due to bad weather, a LAM could automatically raise alerts to the traveler and all ecosystem members. It can then suggest alternative flights, hotels, or rental car options and even recommend staying in the current city and booking a later flight. The LAM could also communicate with the airline and rental car company to request necessary accommodations or compensation for the traveler. Upon the traveler's request, the LAM can automatically initiate the necessary changes to the trip.

Given the relative novelty of Large Action Models (LAMs), it's essential to consider the following key technical considerations and challenges when integrating them into the OTA industry:

Technical Considerations:

• Data Integration and Quality: Access to necessary data from various sources in real-time, maintaining data quality, consistency, and adhering to data privacy regulations.
• Model Training and Fine-tuning: Acquiring and curating a large and diverse dataset, choosing the appropriate LAM architecture and parameters, and of course continuous learning and model updates.
• System Integration: Ensuring compatibility with existing OTA systems, integrating with APIs from airlines, hotels, and rental car companies, do not forget scalability to handle increasing workloads.
• Ethical Considerations: Addressing biases in training data and models and ensuring transparency and accountability.
• Cost and Resource Allocation: Investing in infrastructure and talent, and as key component it is needed to conduct a cost-benefit analysis.

Challenges:

• Data Availability and Quality: Obtaining high-quality and comprehensive data can be challenging.
• Model Complexity: Developing and training complex LAMs can be computationally intensive and resource-demanding.
• Integration Complexity: Integrating LAMs with existing systems and APIs can be technically challenging.
• Ethical Concerns: Addressing biases and ensuring transparency can be complex.
• Cost and ROI:  Due to LAMs' novelty, justifying the investment and measuring ROI can be challenging due to implementation complexity, data requirements, and difficulty in quantifying benefits.

By carefully considering and addressing these technical considerations and challenges, OTAs can successfully integrate LAMs into their operations and reap the benefits of automation and enhanced user experience.

A more conservative option is to use, GenAi and ML features listed below:

• Generative AI : Personalized Itinerary Adjustments:If a traveler needs to change their flight due to a delay. The platform, using generative AI, can analyze the traveler's behavior to suggest alternative flights aligned with their desired arrival time and budget. Also recommend nearby hotels with availability if the original one is no longer there due to the change. By adding Dynamic Content Creation: Generative AI can create personalized travel guides and activity recommendations based on the traveler's interests, changing itinerary, and destination. 
• Machine Learning (ML):
  • Predictive Analytics:  ML to analyze booking changes and predict traveler needs. So OTAs and providers can proactively recommend add-on services (e.g., travel insurance for a last-min booking) or alternative options (e.g., suggesting a nearby hotel with availability if a flight is cancelled).

Other technologies to explore:

• Internet of Things (IoT): Integrate with airline and rental car company IoT to provide real-time updates on flight status, gate changes, or car availability. This can be particularly valuable when travelers need to adjust bookings due to delays or cancellations.
• Augmented Reality (AR): Integrate AR features to allow travelers to virtually explore alternative hotels or rental car options based on their changed itinerary. This can provide a more immersive and interactive way to choose suitable replacements.

Web3 Enhancements:

• Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs): Integrate ZKPs to allow travelers to prove they meet specific requirements (e.g., age for car rental) without revealing any underlying personal data protecting traveler privacy and sending providers information for approvals.
• Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI): Empower travelers to manage their travel identity data through SSI wallets. This allows them to securely share only the necessary information with different travel providers during the change process, enhancing data privacy. Providers can verify traveler identities seamlessly while respecting data privacy standards.

By incorporating these elements, the status quo could be revolutionized, creating a win-win for travelers and the industry

Key Takeaways

1. Blockchain for Streamlined Commissions: Blockchain technology can revolutionize commission attribution for OTAs, eliminating missed revenue due to tracking difficulties. This fosters a win-win scenario for the entire travel ecosystem.
2. Enhanced Experiences for All: The proposed platform goes beyond commission tracking, offering a future-proof solution with trending technologies like Large Action Models, Gen AI and Machine Learning. This translates to a smoother travel change experience for travelers, improved operational efficiency for OTAs, better service and upselling opportunities for airlines and rental car companies.
3. Web3: Beyond the Hype: This platform demonstrates the power of Web3 beyond creating new business models or just utilizing cryptocurrency. By solving real-world problems and creating a more seamless travel experience, it paves the way for broader Web3 adoption in the travel industry.

Embrace Trending Technologies: Is your travel company ready to leverage the latest tech trends? Contact Encora's travel experts. Shridhar Padmanabhan, and Fabiana Moura, will guide you towards success.