Keesup Choe is CEO of AI and machine learning specialist PredictX. Connect with him...
Originating in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the coronavirus
outbreak has caused global concern. Infecting over 100,000 people in 95
countries, the virus has officially surpassed the total death toll of the SARS
epidemic, killing more than 3,000 people.
As COVID-19 spreads,
it not only affects people’s lives, but has a major impact on the travel and
meetings management industry.
Many airlines, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines,
United Airlines, Air France, British Airways, KLM, Qatar Airways, Qantas,
Lufthansa and several other airlines have suspended all
flights to and from China and Hong Kong.
After closing around 150 hotels in China so far, Hilton Hotels was one of the first to weigh in
on potential losses to its chain as a result of the coronavirus. According to
Hilton CEO Chris Nasetta, if the crisis lasts six to 12 months, the company
could see a US$25 million to US$50 million impact. Hyatt Hotels, with its 86
hotels in China, has had close to around 25 properties, with the rest having
incredibly low occupancy. STR
Hotels also expressed concern for the many travel restrictions and flight
cancellations affecting performance in gateway cities in the US. Tourism
Economics conducted an analysis on the potential US travel impact
from the outbreak to find that visits to the US from China could drop by 28 per
cent in 2020 – accumulating a loss of 4.6 million hotel room nights and US$5.8
billion in visitor spending for 2020.
The impact has also penetrated the meetings industry. The world’s biggest phone
show – the Mobile World Conference – was cancelled by the GSM Association after
exhibitors and companies continued to pull out the week before. Facebook also cancelled its global marketing
conference of 4,000 attendees.
ITB Berlin and India have also been cancelled, along with
the London Book Fair, which was expected to bring about 25,000 publishing
industry colleagues together.
While some companies are opting to keep or cancel their
meetings, some are postponing or relocating them. This varies based on the
timing and location of the event.
So now what?
AI and its role in
disease outbreaks
We often speak of AI creating major change; however, it is
often only seen as nothing more than an industry buzzword. How it can actually
be utilised in an industry like travel and meetings is complicated, making it
even more mysterious to outsiders.
The coronavirus is an excellent example of how AI is
increasingly impacting real-world situations. When an unknown illness first
pops up, it can be difficult for governments and public health officials to
gather information quickly enough to manage a real-life emergency.
What type of technology is best suited to quickly gathering
and making sense of new and ongoing fragmented sources of information? AI, of
course.
To be more accurate, it is the capabilities of AI that may
help in responding more rapidly to the evolving pandemic. A Canadian firm, Bluedot,
was able to notify its customers about the new form of
coronavirus before the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and
the World Health Organisation (WHO) sent out official notices.
This is all thanks to its automated infectious disease
surveillance, which uses AI including natural language processing and machine
learning models to track over 100 infectious diseases. It analyses around
10,000 articles in 65 languages each day while also including some
travel-related data such as traveller itinerary information and flight paths to
get a better idea of where the disease was set to spread after it showed up in
mainland China.
The aim was to get information as quickly as possible to
healthcare providers. Technology-driven initiatives like this can be the
difference between one or two traveller cases of coronavirus or a worldwide
outbreak.
What can the business
travel manager do about this?
According to a GBTA survey, nine out of ten travel managers
reported having employees who travel to China and other destinations. Due to
their concern, 80 per cent said they believe it is likely their travellers will
change their plans to avoid flying or any business trip to impacted areas.
A virus outbreak can impact the traveller and the wider
travel programme in a number of ways, which travel managers will now have to
manage accordingly.
The first item to manage is locating travellers within the
current and potentially impacted areas. This involves ensuring that the correct
parties receive accurate and timely reporting so the travel team, the employee
and other stakeholders have what they need to know when they need to know it.
The second is collaborating with the C-Suite on a decision
on changes to the transient travel policy and upcoming meetings and events.
This involves collaboration with business leaders to assess potential business
and financial impact of the changes.
The third is managing the travel industry impact from
cancelled flights and restricted travel areas. The cost of these changes needs
to be tracked appropriately and reduction of traveller demand needs to be
measured. Before any of these things happen, travel programme data needs to
track the impact the outbreak has on the programme in the first place. For
example, there is a cost of the travellers who are detailed for the rebooking
of travel but this is potentially offset by the reduction of demand.
Last is the ongoing review of the impact to contract
performance and any potential needed adjustments. The cost of cancelled room
nights and disrupted flight routes will no doubt lead to changes in supplier
pricing models. Programmes that are not used to monitoring ongoing supplier
performance and pricing will be more severely affected by changes resulting
from disease and other uncontrollable events. Programmes should aim to measure
supplier performance against KPIs and make ongoing policy changes.
AI and data as a
solution to crisis
If we want a solution, the first step would be to examine
the data we have and how we can improve it to mitigate risk. Like any form of
crisis management, receiving accurate and timely data is the “starting block”.
Much of T&E supplier and booking data is not easy to
handle. It contains duplicates, inconsistencies and needs to be consolidated
against more than one data source. Many travel managers often say they do not
even have data reporting they can trust to forward outside their team. If you
cannot trust the data to act on it and communicate to other parties, what is
the point of having it in the first place? AI technology and its ability to
quickly analyse and sort out data discrepancies can be an invaluable asset in
getting off to a good start.
Pre-Trip reporting, for instance, is now more important than
ever. The World Health Organisation updates its website regularly with locations
at risk of coronavirus infection. It is certain they get this data from
somewhere. Imagine if you can add this data feed to your pre-trip report? Add
in another element of notifications and alerts, and you and relevant parties
will be able to know immediately when employees book at-risk destinations.
Each day, data management and AI is becoming even more
advanced than the day before. AI models are providing more intuitive analyses.
Predictive analytics, for example, can use the current impact of the virus and
associated travel complications to indicate how it will impact future travel,
safety, supplier pricing and resulting spend. Imagine if airline providers,
hotel chains and meetings organisers could accurately predict future impact
based on current data. They would know the optimal time to close operations so
risk is minimised and the least possible income is lost.
If Bluedot’s technology is already identifying emergencies
faster than official channels, who knows what this technology can achieve in
the future.