Travel Industry Club: Travel Technology Symposium 2019

Travel Technology Symposium 2019 moderated by Consultant Fenja Weberskirch

Focusing on the topic “Human is the next big thing – machines become human”, the Travel Industry Club and Accenture organised the seventh edition of the Travel Technology Symposium at the Kronberg campus on 7 February 2019. The industry event dealt with the technology trends of tomorrow, the central importance of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it is changing the travel industry. Fenja Weberskirch, Consultant with Dr. Fried & Partner, led the approx. 100 participants through the day as presenter.

Exciting keynote speakers

In his keynote “Customers the Day After Tomorrow”, marketing expert Steven van Belleghem highlighted the development of customer relationships in the context of the “third phase of digital transformation” and the increasing dominance of large technology platforms and explained how big players such as Amazon are increasingly developing into “gatekeepers” for the distribution of services and products.

As an internationally renowned expert on human-machine interaction and AI, Prof. Dr. Krüger, Professor for Computer Science at Saarland University and Director of the Innovative Retail Laboratory at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), reported on cognitive assistance systems, or how the DFKI describes this research area: Computers with eyes, ears and mind.

Use cases from the travel industry

A presentation by Google and FlixMobility Tech highlighted how the GoogleAssistant supports FlixBus. Other use cases from the travel industry came from the areas such as business travel (Comtravo), hospitality (Oracle Hospitality) and from Quandoo. Expedia also demonstrated how technology innovations and AI shape the world of travel.

Dr. Ye Huang presented the possibilities Alibaba Cloud offers in the field of AI, while Microsoft discussed how people can be supported with intelligent technology. In the support area next id and zendesk presented joint solutions and Mackevision, world market leader for Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), presented the concept of the “Digital Twin”.

In addition, Marco Berg, Managing Director of ti&m GmbH in Germany, presented the Lezzgo project, for which the company received the “Best Travel Technology Award 2018” from the Travel Industry Club last year.

We are delighted that we were able to contribute to the Travel Technology Symposium 2019 organised by Travel Industry Club and Accenture and would like to thank Dr. Peter Agel for the invitation and Juliane Ott for the excellent organisation.