Singapore Institute of Directors
Picture yourself in a tiny sake bar on Japan’s Noto Peninsula, swapping stories with the chef in flawless, real-time translation.
Such frictionless conversations, Banyan Group founder Kwon Ping Ho says, will “open up the boundaries of travel in a big, big way.”
Ho, who launched his first resort on an abandoned tin mine in Phuket, Thailand in 1994, has spent over 30 years in the hospitality industry. The 72-year-old told Business Insider that when it comes to AI, tools like simultaneous translation will make a big splash in his industry.
“The one AI that I think will revolutionize our industry and travel is oddly enough, not AGI. That’s science fiction because nobody can imagine what it’s really going to lead to,” Ho said on the sidelines of the International Conference on Cohesive Societies held in Singapore last month.
AGI, or artificial general intelligence, is a theoretical form of AI that is capable of thinking and reasoning like humans. Experts are split on when exactly AGI will be achieved. Some say AGI will be ready in two years, but others say it is decades away.
Real-time translation software, on the other hand, could have a similar impact on travel as budget carriers did, Ho said.
“One of the biggest impediments to tourism travel is the language barrier, and the places you can go to. It’s never been a problem for people to go on group tours and have a tour guide who speaks the language. But as you go deeper into experiential travel, you want to go and talk to people directly,” he added.
Ho said such software would make travelers more confident to venture into far-flung destinations even if they do not speak the local language. He compared it to the rise of budget airline carriers, which took off in the 1990s and 2000s and opened up lower-cost travel to more people.
“When you get instant translation, that’s going to make people go into so many areas they normally wouldn’t go,” he added. “People can go to the remotest village in Japan or Indonesia and not feel strange at all.”
Ho isn’t the only hospitality mogul who said that AI will impact the industry, albeit in a limited fashion, given that the technology is still in its nascent stages.
Brian Chesky, the cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, said on the company’s earnings call in February that he didn’t think AI is “quite ready for prime time.” Chesky said Airbnb would implement AI in its customer service functions first before expanding it to other areas.
“It’s still really early. It’s probably similar to like, the mid to late-90s for the internet. So I think it’s going to have a profound impact on travel, but I don’t think it’s yet fundamentally changed for any of the large travel platforms,” Chesky said.
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