Would You Let Your Computer Book Your Summer holiday?
Would you trust your computer to book a holiday for you? It might seem like the stuff of science fiction, but virtual holiday booking companions, or 'Digital Travel Buddies', could be coming to a screen near you soon.
Flight booking website Skyscanner revealed what it calls the 'Future of Travel 2014' at a London event recently, where it visualised how it sees the global travel industry developing over the next 10 years.
At the heart of this vision is semantic search, which aims to suggest the perfect holiday by analysing user intent and even facial expressions as they view content.
Skyscanner believes that virtual reality will also play an increasingly large role in how we book our summer holidays. Technology such as the Oculus Rift VR headset will soon be shrunk down into wearable kit, namely a contact lens, which will enable holiday shoppers to enter virtual 3D worlds and get a taste of a location before they book.
Pieces of kit like Oculus Rift and Google Glass may also be able to deliver instant translations for people whilst on holiday, bringing down language barriers that might have in the past dissuaded people from visiting some countries.
These are exciting ideas, not least because the technology that could make them a reality is already in development. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, for instance, has developed a flexible circuit that can be placed in a contact lens and used to read a user's mood.
As is so often the case, the future appears to be around the corner. But handing over holiday booking decisions – in part or in whole – to a computer may seem a little scary and science fictional. Imagine receiving holiday suggestions from Red Dwarf's slightly malevolent Holly, or even worse – Hal from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 – they might send us to some pretty far out locations! Holiday insurance would be a must.
And looking further into the future, if virtual reality one day gets so good that we no longer need or want to experience the real thing – what will holiday firms have to sell?
In the medium term, however, these are exciting developments that could change the way we search for holidays. But until those changes take effect, you'll just have to keep on reading starttravel.co.uk's holiday blog in order to find the perfect vacation spot.
Happy holiday hunting!
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