We asked five of the travel and hospitality industry’s top women technology leaders what are some emerging technologies that they believe will have the biggest impact on their businesses and the industry as a whole in the next 12 months. They responded with thoughtful and articulate insight. 

“I believe there will be more on-demand and contactless experiences coming up. This will take shape in different ways such as ordering food en route to the airport for pickup inside the terminal on the way to the gate (and perhaps even delivery to the gate); checking bags without kiosk-printed bag tags, instead using RFID bag tags; and checking out at the stores inside airports with automatic payment as you walk out using Apple Pay or other wallet technology. I don’t think this will be prominent per se in 12 months, but I think travelers will start seeing more of this than they do today. These contactless experiences will continue to gain momentum.” — Jodie Bare, Chief Innovation Officer, Columbus Regional Airport Authority

“According to UNWTO’s Travel and Tourism Tech Startup Ecosystem and Investment Landscape report, and based on the top 100 tourism startups that have taken part in any of the challenges and competitions, these are the main technologies that are leading the sector and will impact it within the next 12 months. Artificial intelligence (AI) remains the preferred solution, as 42.2 percent of the top tourism startups stated offering their services mainly related to accommodation, travel arrangements, and food and beverage. Cloud-related technologies like databases and storage servers are also part of the preferred tech tools of the top startups, representing 40 percent of the entrepreneurs, to provide solutions mainly for hotels and hospitality management, events, and MCCI. Lastly, 25.6 percent use the Internet of things (IoT) to develop tourism solutions mainly related to services as information, guides, destination management organizations services, and internet publishing, broadcasting, consultancy and web research.” — Natalia Bayona, Director of Innovation, Education and Investments, World Tourism Organization

“We will continue to look at emerging technologies as enablers for us to solve problems. So if I think about the average customer coming out of a pandemic, then I have to put their core need for safety and security at the top of our priorities. We’ll continue to see implementation of technologies that help us deliver on health and wellness commitments, contactless and touchless initiatives, and anything else that reduces stress for the customer. Some of the technologies we’re looking at to support these initiatives include biometrics, IoT, digital humans, and 5G connectivity, which will ultimately unlock the power to support so much more data and greater intelligence.” — Jodie Brinkerhoff, Vice President of Innovation, Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport

“I believe that AI, with the combination of advanced data analytics technologies, will set the travel industry towards a deeper understanding of travelers and provide more personalized services. With the pandemic, there’s a huge shift in travelers’ mindsets, with more focus on flexibility, hygiene, security, and health and safety. Hence, I also believe that contactless technologies will play a major role as it would bring in peace of mind and seamless experience to travelers. Customer expectations around touch-of-a-button check-in, digital health passports, Blockchain-powered accelerators for travel loyalty, flexibility to change travel plans with low to no-touch and minimum cost, etc., would continue to drive innovation, thereby improving the travel experience. In a nutshell, technologies will advance to provide a curated, personalized, thoughtful and awesome experience for travelers.” — Lalli Varadh, Director, Software Development, Booking.com

Where I see the biggest impact and potential is within the evolution of data platforms, and further into the future, their ability to make decisions for the business. — Petra Vaskovych, Chief Product Officer, Kiwi.com

To hear more from these and other women in travel and hospitality technology leadership positions, download the report, Women in Travel Tech: Innovators Leading Us Into the Future.