Artificial Intelligence in Egyptian Tourism Compan PDF
Artificial Intelligence in Egyptian Tourism Compan PDF
Artificial Intelligence in Egyptian Tourism Compan PDF
net/publication/342287728
Article in Journal of Association of Arab Universities for Tourism and Hospitality · June 2020
DOI: 10.21608/jaauth.2020.31704.1028
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1. Introduction
Nowadays, tourism businesses search for achieving competitive advantage and
increasing their profits. Accordingly, they must apply state-of-the-art technology,
improve the digital infrastructure and apps for gathering customers’ data, and provide
personalized offerings to increase their market share. Artificial intelligence (AI) is
considered an innovative technology. AI is the study that contains computational
procedures to make actions that humans do and need intelligence, such as problem-
solving (Talwar & Koury, 2017). John Mc Mullach was the first one who defined AI in
1955 as “the usage of engineering to fabricate smart machines” (Hsu, 2018: 127).
1 [email protected]
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Nowadays, AI is widely used by many consumers in their everyday life, even they don’t
realize it (Shandwick, 2016; krogue et al., 2017; Tussyadiah and Miller, 2019). The
widespread usage of digital personal assistants processed by Natural Language
Processing (NLP) and voice recognition apps, such as Google’s Allo and Apple’s Siri,
progressively become the favorable apps to search for personalized recommendations
and information for services and products (An, 2017; Alpaydin, 2020).
AI includes knowledge clarification, search, understanding, and interpretation. To have
effective results, AI must read the data in forms that enable representation and
processing. The usage of AI helps in decision making that depends on the data selection
process, data transformation and data mining, which has a vital role to complete the
process. At last, results assessment will help in taking the right decision (Theodoridis
and Gkikas, 2018). AI can act like tendency modeling that collects and processes large
datasets of previous tourists’ choices, to predict their future behavior (Dimitris and
Prokopis, 2019).
AI techniques allow tourism businesses to be leaders (Brougham and Haar, 2018). It
helps tourism service providers understand tourist’s needs, behaviors, choices, budget
and travel preferences, and provide personalized service and product (Zsarnoczky,
2017; Gajdosik and Marcis, 2019). The adoption of AI has a crucial role in achieving
tourist satisfaction and making travel easier, in addition to making tourism processes
more efficient, improve productivity, and offer positive tourists experience (Chace,
2016; Kazak and Buchatskiy, 2017; Krogue et al., 2017). Despite the importance of
applying AI solutions, they are still not widespread within the tourism field. However, it
is predicted that many AI solutions will be applied in the future to improve the quality
of products and services as well as increase tourism companies’ revenues (Zsarnoczky,
2017; Hsu, 2018).
To the researcher's knowledge, the literature concerning the application of AI in travel
& tourism is limited. There are some authors focused on the usage of AI in predicting
tourism demand such as Burger et al. (2001), and Peng et al. (2014) who suggested a
model for forecasting tourism demand, while Borras et al. (2014) studied the
recommender systems. Murphy et al. (2017) discussed the application of service robots
in hotels, while Ivonov and Webster (2017) investigated the adoption of robots in travel,
tourism, and hospitality. Li et al. (2017) explained how can Artificial Neural Network
(ANN) be used to create a revenue – forecasting model, which is customized to tourism
companies to optimize their revenues via improving sales and market share. Tussyadiah
and Miller (2019) discussed the impact of AI on tourist’s behavior and sustainability.
The objectives of this research are to a) display the concept of artificial intelligence, b)
identify the importance of applying AI in tourism, c) investigate to what extent the AI
techniques are implemented in tourism companies in Egypt, and d) explore the
employees’ perceptions of using AI in tourism operations. This research will show the
appropriate AI techniques that can be applied in tourism companies, in addition to
identifying the impacts of implementing AI in tourism operations, which may help
managers to build tactics and strategies to develop their technological infrastructure and
improve the employees’ skills. This, in turn, enhances their performance as well as
saves time and money.
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2
With reference to Merriam- Webster dictionary (2020) Chatbot is a computer program that simulates
human conversation through voice commands or text chats or both. Chatbot, short for chatterbot, is an AI
feature that can be embedded and used through any major messaging applications
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Experts assured that personal assistants will be the new gatekeepers to the WWW,
displacing many crucial search engines such as Facebook as well as Google (Gesiler,
2018). As a result, the Facebook team tries to compete in the travel search through
developing the “Deep Text” AI engine (Samara, 2017).
Leading tourism companies have already used AI systems, which enable them to
analyze big data and learn from their own as well as other peers’ experience of
satisfying customers’ needs (Ivanov, 2019). Such as Trip Advisor, Booking.com, and
Expedia have already started to apply AI techniques to provide personalized
recommendations. For instance, Trip Advisor has developed a platform for clustering
big data. It applies Hadoop to save and process web registration data, SQL servers to
cluster data, Hive to classify data and insert it into tables, and ML to enhance the site
experience. Such platforms, which apply ML, help in classifying tourists’ reviews, this
classification helps in reading tourists’ reviews, and scores to what extent this review is
helpful, accordingly decide whether the review would be refused, or accepted and
published (Gajdosik and Marcis, 2019). Booking.com has already launched a pilot
platform to offer several choices and opportunities to tourists, to seek within different
tourism companies and hotels across different tourism destinations (Samara, 2017).
Facial recognition is another way of applying AI in the tourism field, this technology
helps tourists to travel through airports and board aircraft without travel documents. If
facial recognition combined with blockchain3, visitors can visit duty free-shops,
restaurants, or access entertainment easily with his facial scan (Entis, 2017). The
blockchain technology guarantees that the data and information of traveler are trusted,
and help in recognizing the customer’s arrival and automatically check them in
(Makridakisv and Christodoulou, 2019). In airports, self-check-in machines, and
automated passport check via face recognition facilitate the flow of travelers (Ivanov
and Webster, 2017; Inan & Arslan, 2018; Ueda & Kurahashi, 2018).
Also, some airlines have commenced using AI in dealing with social media inquiries,
such as KLM dealt with 50% of all their travelers’ inquiries through applying AI in
2017, British Airlines Easy Jet applies AI systems to forecast their travelers’ needs of
beverages and meals aboard, to minimize the inventory costs (Gesiler, 2018). Also,
there’s a travel application for iPhone named ‘Lola’ is a type of chat platform that
emerges travel within online communication with their customers, it uses both AI chat
functions and working staff live interaction in tourism companies (Saulat, 2018). Such
platforms can increase customers’ engagement as well as improve the quality of service
(Gkikas and Theodoridis, 2017).
3. The importance of AI in Tourism
The adoption of AI systems in tourism can diminish the time taken to accomplish tasks,
in addition to enhancing the accuracy of processes and outputs. The tourism industry
needs technological systems able to store, analyze big data related to stakeholders and
information concerning tourist preferences. AI will help tourism providers/destinations
3
According to Merriam- Webster dictionary (2020) Blockchain refers to a digital database containing
information that can be simultaneously used and shared within a large decentralized, publicly accessible
network. Block represents digital information; the chain represents how digital data is stored in the
database.
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to well understand the requirements of their customers and provide sustainable services
that achieve customer’s satisfaction. AI has a crucial role in improving the quality of
tourism services by minimizing errors (Persing and Ng, 2009), and achieving the
customers’ expectations throughout offering personalized service that suits customers’
needs (Nick, 2014).
AI techniques can add values to the provided services, which enable tourism companies
to offer products and services at a lower price with high quality, and promote their
offers at a convenient price to the right target tourists, in addition to providing positive
experiences for their customers (Saulat, 2018). In the context of revenue management,
AI helps tourism companies to build strategies to improve their revenues, and forecast
potential financial challenges and opportunities (Li et al., 2017).
AI systems can forecast tourist loyalty throughout demonstrating the attractive
elements, such as the quick response and the quality of tourism services, and implement
them in tourism service platform. Accordingly, customers can be switched into frequent
visitors and finally loyal ones (Hsu et al., 2009). The usage of AI systems enables
tourism companies to send personalized offerings to their customers relying on
analyzing customer’s location data, preferences, and characteristics (Alexis, 2017).
Today, it’s very crucial for tourism companies to provide immediate and efficient
delivery of services and products, and achieve positive tourism experience to attract
new tourists and improve their market share. So, they must give great concern to the
application of the latest technology and apply AI techniques to increase revenues,
organize operations, enhance productivity and improve efficiency (Makridakis, 2017;
Talwar et al., 2017; Davenport, 2018). Subsequently, they can compete professionally in
the tourism field (Kazak et al., 2020).
4. Methodology
To accomplish the objectives of this research, a quantitative approach was applied, as an
online questionnaire was designed on Microsoft Forms to investigate the
implementation of AI techniques in tourism companies in Egypt and to explore the
perception of employees using AI in their operations. The participants were asked to
answer the questionnaire after reading a scenario informing them about the benefits of
using AI in some travel agents. A stratified random sampling method was applied. The
selection of participants relied on their nearness to the researcher and the ease to contact
them. The questionnaire has an introduction, in which the aim of the research was
stated. Also, respondents were informed of their right to complete the survey or
withdraw. The data was confidentially gathered from employers and employees.
The questionnaire consisted of three parts. The first one focuses on profile data, the
second part consists of 10 items demonstrating the availability of AI tools in tourism
companies, and the third one displays 12 items to demonstrate the employees’
perception of applying AI in tourism companies. These items were displayed on a 5-
point Likert scale, rated from (1) strongly disagree to (5) strongly agree. The
questionnaire was distributed online starting from November 2019 targeting the
employers and employees of the Egyptian tourism companies through using social
networking such as LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Facebook. Five hundred questionnaires
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were distributed, only 320 responses were received: 200 respondents work in tourism
companies that provide full tourism services (inbound, outbound and domestic
packages), while 64 of respondents work in tourism companies, which provide transport
service, and 56 of the sample work in companies that provide Haj and Omra.
To analyze the research data, the following statistical tools were applied: descriptive
data, One-Way ANOVA to explore the differences among groups; and Exploratory
Factor Analysis (EFC), which is considered a statistical technique that is utilized to
identify the factors that affect the phenomena.
5. Results
Table 1 indicates the descriptive data of the sample, as 36.2% of the respondents work
in large scale tourism companies, which employ more than 30 employees. Concerning
profession, more than half of the sample are employees and operation managers, about
58% assured working in their position for 3 years or more. Most of the surveyed tourism
companies have websites (84.1%), and 37.2% update their websites daily, whereas
15.9% never update or publish their service offerings because they don’t have websites.
Table 1
Demographic profile of the respondents
Profile Frequencies (n=320) Percentage %
Size of the organization
Micro company up to 10 employees 79 24.7
Small scale company up to 20 employees 108 33.8
Medium-scale up to 30 employees 17 5.3
More than 30 employees 116 36.2
Profession
Owner 91 28.4
Employee 127 39.7
Operation manager 102 31.9
How many years have you held this position
Less than one year 67 20.9
Between 1 & 2 years 66 20.6
3 years and more 187 58.4
Does your organization have a website
Yes 269 84.1
No 51 15.9
How often this website updated
Daily 119 37.2
Weekly 57 17.8
Monthly 54 16.9
Seasonal 20 6.3
Yearly 19 5.9
Never 51 15.9
The following table indicates the means of availability of successful AI tools that are
applied in the investigated tourism companies. Most of the respondents strongly agree
with using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to communicate
with their customers. Respondents are agreed with updating their websites, providing
online reservations, and using text-based communication channels (e-mail, chat, social
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media, mobile messaging). While respondents disagree and strongly disagree with using
systems to auto-reply to customers’ inquiries, applying In-house technology that uses
algorithms to enable the prediction of tourists’ interests and preferences, and providing
24/7 customer care.
Table 2
Means of the availability of AI tools that can be applied in tourism companies
Items Mean Std. Classification
Deviation
Communicate with our customers by using social 4.33 1.106 positive
networks (e.g. Facebook, Tweeter, Instagram
An updated website filled with all information about 3.99 1.297 positive
provided services
On-line reservation 3.91 1.267 positive
Text-based communication channels (e.g. e-mail, 3.91 .967 positive
chat, social media, mobile messaging)
Offering personalized recommendations during the 3.25 1.324 Neutral
customer’s journey planning phase
Real-time communication with customers 3.16 1.463 Neutral
Technological systems to evaluate our customers’ 3.00 1.320 Neutral
reviews and feedback
System to auto-reply the customers’ inquiries and 2.85 1.454 Negative
questions
Provide 24/7 customer care service 2.55 1.135 Negative
In-house technology that uses algorithms to enable 2.39 1.390 Negative
the prediction of tourists’ interests and preferences
One-way ANOVA is applied to investigate if there are differences among tourism
companies’ sizes and the usage of AI tools. Table 3 indicates differences among groups
(p < 0.0001) favor large-sized companies (more than 30 employees) and Medium-scale
companies up to 30 employees, there means are 40.5345 and 39.5882 respectively.
While Micro company up to 10 employees scored the lowest mean (24.7215). Table 4
demonstrates differences among tourism companies concerning the application of AI (p
< 0.0001), favor tourism companies that provide full tourism services (international and
domestic packages), followed by tourism transport companies, their means are 35.8298
and 33.2857.
Table 3
Differences among tourism companies’ sizes concerning the availability of AI tools
Tourism companies’ sizes Mean F Sig.
Micro company up to 10 employees 24.7215 76.035 0.000
Small scale company up to 20 employees 30.9259
Medium-scale up to 30 employees 39.5882
Large scale company more than 30 employees 40.5345
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Table 4
Differences among tourism companies filed concerning the application of AI
Organization field Mean F Sig.
Inbound, outbound and domestic tourism 35.8298 7.737 0.001
Transport 33.2857
Haj and Omra 29.4483
To demonstrate the important dimensions that indicate the advantages and
disadvantages of applying AI in tourism companies, EFC was applied by using principal
component analysis (PCA) in SPSS. The analysis was carried out on a list of 12 items.
The analysis developed two factors, representing 82.321% of the total variance in the
research data (Table 5). The score of Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin (KMO) test was 0.918 (p <
0.001), demonstrating the adequacy of the sample for each of the variables in the data.
According to Yong and Pearce (2013) if the value of KMO is greater than 0.5 so the
sample is adequate, subsequently the sample size is perfect. The analysis revealed two
factors as the Initial Eigenvalues for the first 2 factors are significant as they achieve
Eigenvalues > 1. Factors 1 and 2 explain 54.117% and 28.204% of the variance, with a
cumulative total of 82.321%.
Table 5
Principle factors of AI impacts
Impacts of AI Factor loading Eigenvalue Cumulative% Cronbach’s α
Factor 1: Advantages of AI 6.294 54.117 0.937
Solve complex problems facing .952
the management
Save business time and money .901
Accomplish tasks quickly 24/7 .895
Achieve positive impacts on the .862
business revenues
Assist in increasing market-share .799
Achieve customers’ preferences .774
Improve customer experience .695
Factor 2: Disadvantages of AI 3.585 82.321 0.901
Cause computer hacking .956
Cause job losses .890
Causing employees lazy and less .786
productive
Decrease the employee’s skills .942
Give rise to less security for .939
customer’s data and information
The previous table shows that the first factor named AI advantages, which identifies the
benefits of applying AI in tourism companies from the viewpoints of respondents,
which include the merits of applying AI in tourism companies; solving complex
problems, saving business time and money, increasing the companies’ revenues, and
achieving customer satisfaction as well as improving their experience. The second
factor named AI disadvantages, which demonstrates the expected negative impacts of
applying AI in tourism companies such as computer hacking, job losses, causing
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employees to be lazy and less productive, decreasing the employee's skills, and less
security for customer’s data and information.
6. Conclusion
This research investigates the implementation of artificial intelligence tools in Egyptian
tourism companies and the employees’ perceptions of applying AI in the tourism
business. The results revealed that the majority of tourism companies are applying few
tools of AI in their business. The most applied AI tools are using the social networks to
communicate with the tourists, online reservation, and text-based communication
channels such as e-mail, chat, and mobile messaging. On the other hand, there is a lack
of processing In-house technology that uses algorithms to enable the prediction of
tourists’ interests and preferences, developing systems to auto-reply the customers’
inquiries and questions, and providing 24/7 customer care service. There is a deficiency
in using real-time communication with customers, offering personalized
recommendations, and applying technological systems to evaluate the tourists’ reviews
and feedback.
There were significant differences among studied groups concerning the application of
AI tools, favor large and medium-scale tourism companies. This is may refer to the
financial capacity that enables them to construct the latest technology infrastructure.
Also, results showed that tourism companies that provide full tourism services such as
inbound, outbound, and domestic packages, ranked first in applying AI tools, followed
by tourism transport companies. Concerning employees’ perceptions of applying AI
tools in the tourism operations, two factors emerged: advantages of AI (enthusiastic)
and disadvantages of AI (suspicious). The advantages of AI represent the direct outputs
of implementing AI, such as solve complex problems facing the management, save time
and money, accomplish tasks perfectly, and boost business revenues as well as increase
market share. While the second factor represents the demerits of applying AI, such as
computer hacking, decreasing the employee’s skills, causing less security for the
customer’s profile, and losing jobs. Regarding the suspicious employees who fear losing
their jobs, the application of AI will not threaten them, as any task that needs
complicated processes and analytics can be carried out through technology. On the other
hand, tasks that need communication, innovation, and development of innovative
solutions need human skills.
This research contributes by investigating AI tools that can be implemented in tourism
companies and demonstrating the importance of applying AI techniques, as a result
opening a pathway for drawing policies and strategies to support using such technology.
From a managerial viewpoint, AI can enable tourism companies to improve their
performance, achieve customer satisfaction and perceptions, and enhance tourist
experience as well as achieve competitive advantage. In the future, it’s predicted that
more systems will be developed, and AI will be widely applied in the tourism field, so
managers and employees should be ready for this. It is recommended that tourism
companies should select and implement the useful tools of AI, improve their
technological infrastructure, provide training courses for their employees to develop
their technological skills. As the human element is very vital for the tourism field that
can’t be substituted. This paper investigated the applied AI tools in tourism companies
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in Egypt. There are many other concerns that can be studied in future research. First,
future research should carry out a cost-benefit analysis for implementing AI in travel
and tourism. Second, this paper discussed the employees’ perception of using AI
techniques in tourism operations but didn’t discuss tourists’ viewpoints concerning
using AI tools. Future studies should study tourists’ perceptions of using AI in planning
their trips.
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