this presentation was given as UAE celebrates the innovation month and was organized by the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism. It highlights how disruptive technologies such as AI, Blockchain, IoT, VR & AR are impacting and changing the way we travel and experience places.

1. How Disruptive
Technologies are Shaping
the Future of Tourism
Dr. Saeed Khalfan Aldhaheri
Chairman of the Board, Smartworld
@DDSaeed
A workshop presented during the UAE Innovation month and sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism
‫السياحة‬ ‫مستقبل‬ ‫المتقدمة‬ ‫التقنيات‬ ‫شكل‬ُ‫ت‬ ‫كيف‬

3. My Interest in AI and disruptive technologies
Audit in the age of AI

4. What is
disruptive
innovation?

5. Innovating the world of travel and tourism
• A hotel room automatically adjusting to your preferences
• Virtual reality headsets as brochures
• Robot welcomes you and check you in at a hotel
• AR using your smartphone to provide you with interactive tours
• Facial recognition to let you seamlessly check-in through immigrations at airports
• AI chatbot as your virtual assistant to support you during travel
• Speech recognition allows you to order room service in China in your own language
• A virtual key sent to your WhatsApp to let you open your room door
• Paying your bills at a hotel or a restaurant using Cryptocurrency coin
Digital Innovation will ever change the way we travel and experience places

6. Digital innovations
bring new
business models
to the travel &
Tourism industry
The sharing economy model:
Airbnb disrupting hotels
Uber disrupting taxi operators
Cookening disrupting restaurants

7. The 4th Industrial Revolution 4IR is driven by the
disrupting technologies of AI, IoT, and Blockchain

8. Digitalization of the travel and tourism industry
creates value for the society and the environment
The digitalization of aviation, travel
and tourism could unlock more than
$1 trillion of value for the industry
and society over the next decade.
Societal benefits include cost and
time savings for consumers and
reduced environmental footprints.
[WEF report]

9. Two themes shaping the travel and tourism
industry
• Seamless travel
• requires cooperation between governments and information sharing
between business: from airports and airlines to hotels, restaurants,
transportation and other destination services
• Personalized travel
• Considers power of technology to aggregate consumer data and deliver
personalized travel experiences.
• The use of AI to learn from the online behavior of millions of people, mine
data, and meet the needs of each traveler at every moment

12. Five mega trends impacting Travel & Tourism
in the GCC
• Demographic and Social Change
• A shift in global economic power
• Rapid urbanization
• Climate change and resource scarcity
• Rise of Technology

13. Demographic and Social Change
• The changing global population
• The ageing population
• The changing faces of demand
How can the hotel industry respond?
• Embrace innovation in Hotel branding
• AirBnB vs. Hotels; Proactive vs. Reactive
• Transform services to become more consumer-centric
• Overhaul of traditional hotel marketing concepts
• Focus more on social media marketing
• Digitization
• Automated booking, mobile check-ins, BYOD
Source: Global Megatrends and their impact on the
ME’s travel and tourism industry

14. Mobile is the main
channel for travelers
• Mobile travel sales expected to reach $260 billion
in 2019. WTTC
• Accounting for 40% of travel sales in 2017. Skift
report
• Increasing personalization of customer travel
experiences
• The mobile is our personal travel assistant
• Example: Handy: a new innovation
• Used by many luxury hotels world wide

15. Social Networking is a growing channel for
interaction
• SM apps are very popular (Facebook,
WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat,,etc)
• Provide convenience to users
• KLM started in August to accept payments
through WeChat
• Sunexpress sells tickets via WhatsApp
• Expedia, kayak, Skychat,,,etc using chatbots
connected to SM platforms (e.g, facebook
messenger)

16. Data will fuel more digital innovation in Travel
and Tourism
• IoT will generate more data and big data
analytics will play crucial part to gain
insight about travelers habits and
preferences
• AI will be heavily depended on big data
• AI, IoT, and big data analytics will deliver
personalized experiences to customers
• Data Dilemma
• Issue of data privacy

17. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play a big role
in the T & T industry
• Building smart travel virtual assistant
• Analyze big data for insight
• Chat bots help suppliers to provide better service
• NLP and voice tech. makes translation between languages seamless
between people
• AI: developing computer systems that exhibit intelligent Behavior
• Machine Learning: teaching computers to learn without Programming
• Deep Learning: model the brain, not the world
• Approximate the function of neurons in the brain
• uses artificial neural networks with many layers
• Why AI now:
• Increase in computing power, BiG Data, and enhanced algorithms
AI will be able to double economic growth
for 12 of developing economies by 2035 and
will help increase productivity by 40%.
Accenture

18. AI and Robotics: New innovation in T & T
industry
• Henn-Na Hotel:
Operating the first robot-staff hotel
Japan’s five-star Henn-Na Hotel is the first hotel to
be equipped with intelligent robots as its staff. It
aims to be “the most efficient hotel in the world” by
reducing manpower and having robots of various
shapes and sizes make up 90% of its personnel.
Japanese speaking guests are greeted by humanoid
robots at the reception, while English speaking
guests are met by a robotic dinosaur. Functional
droids are distributed across the hotel to carry
luggage, man luggage lockers and provide
housekeeping services. The hotel is also equipped
with state-of-the-art technologies such as facial
recognition for guest room access, tablets to make
in-room service requests and radiation panels that
can detect body heat and automatically adjust
ambient temperature.

19. Digital transformation will have a big impact
on the travel & tourism workforce
• Automation will change the nature of
some travel jobs and eliminates others
• New employment opportunities
• Platforms enable ‘liquid’, flexible
workforce models
• Redefine the employer-employee
relationship
• Present new challenges for regulation the
workforce
• New jobs: data scientists, IoT architects

20. Chatbots in the travel and tourism industry
• Chatbots: Virtual assistant able to hold a natural language conversation with a human
• Ideal for customer-centric businesses
• Availability 24/7
• Faster interaction
• Consistent service
• Cost reduction
• Multiple language
• Examples:
• KLM Airline: the first to use chatbot with facebook messenger, and on WhatsApp

21. Chatbots can enhance the whole travel
experience
• Chatbots can enhance travelers experience and become travel
assistants
• A chatbot as a travel companion
• flight details, baggage information, airport information,
destination recommendations, Anticpate needs
Skychat: baggage status, call for boarding, flight status, gate
status, belt No…etc
• Airlines: booking flights, smart-in-flight entertainment, customer
service
• Hotels: check-ins, guest services, concierge agents
• Example: Hilton hotel Connie robot: assists guests at check-in
and advises on local attractions and things to do
Ask Shihab chatbot in the app of the
Department of Culture and Tourism

22. DCT a pioneering organization in
leading with digital innovation
• Shehab Chatbot serving internal and
external customers
• Intelligent dashboard for data processing
and analysis
• Smart kiosk uses facial recognition to
identify gender, age, ethnicity to further
understand user behavior
• Robots are used to provide services the
national library
• Visit Abu Dhabi app won the world
government award for the best tourism
app
Smart kiosk (facial recognition)
Shehab automated chat robot Intelligent dashboard for data processing and analysis
Results of using Shehab Chatbot

23. Customer Happiness is the ultimate goal of
digital innovation in UAE
• Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT)
• Continuous tracking of customer feedback
• Turning customer pain points into
opportunities for improvement
• Smart Dubai
• From the smartest city to the happiest city
• Adopting a comprehensive approach to
achieving happiness
• Focus to deliver impactful experiences
for residents and visitors
Source: Department of Culture and Tourism, Abu Dhabi

24. IoT Technology is bringing new innovations to
the Travel and Tourism Industry
• Travel and Tourism on top of the industries investing on IoT.
• Connecting smart devices, systems, processes and people
• Provides convenience and enhances guests interaction with devices
in hotels
• Streamlining back-end operations and increase efficiency and
environment sustainability
• Marketers can provide more personalized campaigns
• Applications: smart airports, smart Shopping centers, smart theme
parks, hotels, conference centers,,,etc
• Example: Disney Magic band initiative in Orlando
• Need to build a clear business
strategy for IoT
• IoT infrastructure must be
matched with good analysis
• Challenges: - IoT Security
8.4 Billion connected “things” will be
in use in 2017, and will reach 20.4
Billion by 2020. Gartner

25. Blockchain will spark a new type of
technology race in travel and tourism industry
• The Technology behind cryptocurrency and smart contracts
• Still in early stages
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• Distribution: airlines and hotels working direct
• Disrupting the role of OTA and Hotel booking platforms
• Win/win for industry corps and travelers
• Injecting “FOMO” is a big contribution
• Disrupting: payment
• Combing Blockchain, AI and IoT will have dramatic impact
• Trusted and secure transactions
• Faster transactions (no
intermediaries)
• reduced cost of transaction
• Auditability of transactions
Advantages of Blockchain
The market size is expected to grow from $241.9
Million in 2016 to USD 7.6 Billion by 2022, at
CAGR of 79.6%. Markets and Markets

26. Blockchain apps in travel are growing
• Creating new marketplaces
• using smart contracts to execute transaction
• A new way of using loyalty points
• Almost zero commission
• New bus model for startups
• investment opportunities from token sale (TGE)
• The T&T world need to work closely with the crypto world

27. Cryptocurrencies are the new digital currency
for Travel and Tourism
• The “wild west”
• Cryptocurrencies disrupting traditional payment methods
• Opens up a new segment of the travelling global population
• Direct peer-to-peer relationship
• Cryptocurrency issues: huge price volatility, fluctuating values,
unpredictable, vulnerable to fraud and hacking
• Hoteliers look for simplicity, instantaneity, commission free
• Regulations will help increase adoption
• OTA and car rental: CheapAir.com, Destinia.com
• Airlines: airBaltic accepts bitcoin since 2014
• Hotel booking: expedia
• Virigin Galactic: Future space tourists can purchase tickets
Hotel Ginebra: the world first business to accept Ada crypto

28. Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality
• VR replaces the real-world environment with a virtual
one
• Digitally transport a traveler to a hotel or travel
destination to provide immersive experience
• Can be used with a headset or smart devices
• Provides virtual travel experience and virtual hotel
tour
• AR enhance the real-world environment in real
time by adding digital component to it to make
the environment more interactive
• Can be used with headset or smart devices
• e.g, interactive hotel rooms
• AR Enhance experience of exploring surrounding
area and provides more information to the
environment

29. Virtual Tour of some of Abu Dhabi’s main
Heritage and tourist attractions
Zayed Grand Mosque

30. What regulators need to do
• Regulators need to collaborate with policy makers to allow and
address new innovations – forecast trends and act quickly
• Embrace the digital revolution and overcome shortcomings of legacy
systems
• Eencourage and attracts start-ups and help establish ecosystem
• Identify skills needed for the future and train staff
• Develop tourism digital strategy to be aligned with the city and
national strategies

31. End