RWU Professor in the Tourism Committee of the Bundestag

Weingarten - In mid-March, Professor Dr. Wolfram Höpken, Professor of Information Systems and Head of the Institute for Digital Change at Ravensburg-Weingarten University of Applied Sciences (RWU), was invited as an expert to the Tourism Committee of the German Bundestag. The public hearing focused on the topic of "Artificial Intelligence and Robotics - Opportunities for Tourism". Various possible applications of AI and robotics in the tourism industry were discussed.

In the tourism sector, there are already a variety of different application areas of AI. "Practicable solutions now exist in almost all areas [...] of tourism," Höpken said in his statement. In detail, however, the practicality varies greatly depending on the specific area of application, he added. In addition, the degree of intelligence of the systems varies. In the future, however, a strong increase in the penetration of all tourism sectors with AI solutions is to be expected.

A basic distinction must be made between weak and strong AI: The capabilities of weak AI are limited to singular tasks or problems. It can be used to handle clearly defined tasks with a fixed methodology in order to solve more complex but recurring and precisely specified problems. In contrast, strong AI can completely map the human mind - but is still far from this goal. On the level of weak AI, however, there are already successful models in many areas - not only in tourism.

Opportunities and challenges of AI in tourism

Key benefits of AI in the tourism industry include "increasing productivity and [...] reducing transaction costs while improving customer loyalty," explained Höpken whose research includes information and communication technology systems in tourism. There are two challenges in expanding the use of AI, he said: First, he said, specific expertise in AI needs to be built up and established in tourism companies. Second, very large amounts of data are needed, but obtaining them involves a great deal of effort.

"The targeted use of AI and related technologies can support the provision of a region's offer as flexibly and intelligently as possible and thus increase the transparency of the offer," Höpken explained. In tourism, AI is particularly well suited to creating projections of crowds at specific times. This makes it possible to better manage tourist flows, "both in terms of customer benefit and compatibility with the environment," for example in sensitive environmental areas where too many people should not be present at the same time.

Need for political action

For all this to succeed political action is needed, Höpken said. He mentioned two important factors: on the one hand, the (further) qualification of the employees of tourism businesses. Secondly, there is a "general lack of interdisciplinary teaching and research at colleges and universities that links the fields of tourism and IT/CI". In addition to continuing education programs and innovation centers in these areas, interdisciplinary courses of study and research projects are also needed. "In order," Höpken clarified, "to reduce the tourism sector's dependence on U.S. IT corporations in particular and to develop tourism-specific AI solutions tailored to the needs of German or European tourism companies and regions."

In addition to Höpken, four other experts from various tourism companies were invited to the public hearing. The common consensus was that a lot of new opportunities and applications could already be expected in the tourism sector through AI in the near future. However, much still needs to be done to make the most of the potential, especially in the areas of education, training and research, he said.

You can read the entire statement here.

Text: Prof. Dr. Wolfram Höpken / Lisann Gauß