You probably already heard about AI, and you might even have experimented with AI.

As more and more business adapt AI technology in their business processes and workflows, understanding how to leverage these tools for your own business optimization is crucial if you want to stay competitive. In this guide, we'll explore how platforms like Google's Gemini, ChatGPT, and Microsoft CoPilot can transform your tourism business operations. But will also share how you can look at other solutions to improve the profitability of your business with AI

What is AI ?

Where AI stands for Artificial Intelligence it is a technique where humans try to code software to let a computer mimic human intelligence. The AI we use with the chat interfaces we see popping up all around is called Generative AI. A smart pieces of software that based on many parameters and an enormous amount data that it analyzed and discovered patterns can predict a next pieces of output like text, sounds, or pixels.

Because it predicts the next words, it will give general output if your input is not very specific. Therefor creativity is still enormous important. But once you get result you like, it suddenly becomes very easy to scale this and or make unlimited number of varieties of it.

However except as a creator AI can also be a very good feedback system, talking with AI can make your ideas better, because it can see blind spots or gives interesting suggestions to think longer about.

Hallucination

Another issue with AI is that it predicts a next word, if there are no guardrails to stop the AI predicting a next word and it doesn't have the right input to properly predict the next word, it will make up the facts itself. This is called hallucinating and because it predicts a next word, what it comes up with can seem very very logical and completely in line with what you are working on, making it sometimes hard to filter out an hallucination. This means you need to very alert to that and actively ask the system to stay within facts.

Starting with AI: First Steps

An answer on where to start with AI first might be a funny one; let AI help you to implement AI in your business. By starting to work with a generative AI solution of a tool you like; experiment with Google's Gemini, Chat GPT and Microsoft Co Pilot and ask questions like: how can i implement AI in my business processes. It helps to refine your question as good as possible and share details about your company, but also ask the AI solution to ask you questions. The new voice solutions are ideal for this; Open AI's Chat GTP io can be used as a real consultant, just have a conversation and ask all the questions you have. You will notice AI is going to ask questions back. You find the results of your conversation back in the chat, where you could ask AI again for a summery of the most important points.

A common first use of AI is content creation. Which you can do with the same generative AI solution. You can use Generative AI to first make or sharpen your strategy, then make a communication or marketing plan and then create content in line with the strategies you made. It helps to define templates and company guidelines to make sure everyone is using the tool the same and consistency is assured. Please note AI still needs briefing, human feedback and editing just like you would also do when you are outsourcing.

Optimizing Tourism Business Processes with AI

To decide how AI can be useful for your tourism company you need to know what AI is good in. Doing repetitive digital work, analyzing big chunks of data, personalized communications, customer care.

When investing money you want to look at where you have constraints and bottlenecks in your company, can digital and ai solutions help you ? AI is good in analyzing, putting the right information in templates, help with creative processes, but also as a helpdesk for example for employers to ask about guidelines and sops of your company. However when you are implementing AI you need to be sure the questions asked are based on available information. When this information is lacking, AI will fill in those details itself, leading to made up answers that might not make any sense. You can prevent this by using guardrails that should stop the AI generating answers when there is not enough info, however this can be hard and needs serious testing, because AI wants to please you. When you start Using AI, start with those parts of your business you have organized your data best for. And start organizing data properly for areas you want to use AI for in the future.

When creating new experience you can think how digital communication could enhance an experience. AI can mimic for example historical people which can enhance an experience significantly.

Creating Content with AI

One of the most logical first steps is to let AI help you in your content creation process. AI is great in helping you to create a strategy, marketing communication plan, social media plan and helping you with social media posts.

You can feed AI with your ideas and if possible a template you like to work with and it will help you fill in your plans.

AI will help you to speed up the creation and will give you content ideas that are always aligned with your strategy and branding guidelines of destinations.

To be able to create content that is truly unique and aligned with your strategy you need to learn how to create effective instructions called prompts. In a masterclass content creation with AI that I have created together with Tove Antonissen and Peter Fabricius for CBI we used a prompting framework :

  • Give a role to AI - for example be a blogger
  • Give a clear tasks - write a blog for me about the Eifel tour
  • Give a format - Use max 1000 words, subheading, optimize for the keywords eifel tour and paris and link it to my tour about Paris
  • Give context - The tone of voice you want to use, which USP's to use
  • Give a goal - Let visitor click on the link to my paris tour

Analyzing your data with AI

Another logical step is to analyze your data with the help of AI. Feed AI with website and other analytics and let it find opportunities or places to improve based on your strategy.

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