TECHNOLOGICAL SUPPORT - The travel industry is turning to technology more and more to cope with increasing logistical challenges. (Photo by Anna Shvets, Pexels)
Rising travel logistics solutions could be as instructive for the DOD as for private enterprise.
Blame it on Thomas Cook. In 1851, the British entrepreneur created the first “package tour,” organizing a group of his countrymen to visit London together with the same scheduled itinerary. Before that, the only people who had been able to indulge in leisure travel—especially the Grand Tours of major European cities—were the privileged few who made their arrangements on an individual basis. Now, suddenly, the bourgeoisie could travel to the same places, albeit not as luxuriously.
Mass market tourism began to take hold in the wake of Cook’s innovations. Fast forward another century, and leisure travel exploded after World War II, thanks to a series of overlapping developments: the growth of the airline industry; improved transportation infrastructure in general (cars, buses, trains, ships and planes); the increased affluence of the middle class; and the introduction of paid vacation days for employees.
Today, massive tourist invasions are normal. Upwards of 50 million people will invade the city of Paris in 2025, and a similar number is projected for Rome. Venice, a city of 50,000 people, tries to cope with more than 20 million visitors a year. Far-flung destinations like Antarctica are not immune: That white wilderness, bigger than Australia, registered fewer than 8,000 visitors two decades ago but may surpass 120,000 in 2025. The global travel market, estimated to be worth about $12 trillion in 2024, is growing at a compound annual rate of 5.4%. This means that the market will double in size by 2035, and it is already 14 times the size of the 2024 U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) budget.
So, how has the travel industry been able to keep up with this staggering volume of people, the equipment needed to transport them and the supplies required to feed and house them?
The solutions could be as instructive for the DOD as for private enterprise, since many of the issues they face are analogous. Fortunately, technology has evolved dramatically in half a century to keep pace with market needs. Sophisticated data management systems have been developed to handle the sheer number of people, planes, hotel rooms, ship cabins, provisions and other complexities that are integral to the exploding travel industry. Logistics are the baseline for these systems.
“Efficiency, optimization and agility are the goals of any logistics system,” Alicia Ingersoll, a professor of business at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, explained during an interview. “But it is preparedness that underlies everything. Logistics leaders need to be knowledgeable and up-to-date on a variety of topics, such as geopolitics, the regulatory environment, weather patterns and the business environment, in order to be prepared.”
Preparedness, Ingersoll explained, is a thorough understanding of one’s operating environment. “This means constantly scanning sources of information and being able to digest that information to make informed decisions. You can build an agile and adaptable system, but in order to maximize that system you need to be able to understand when it is time to shift,” she emphasized.
The Army recognized that “time to shift” in 2018, when it established the Army Futures Command to integrate new concepts and capabilities into its mission of winning future wars. This was followed by the Army Digital Transformation Strategy (ADTS) in 2021. Key objectives of the ADTS include data-driven decision making, cloud implementation, cybersecurity enhancements, network modernization and workforce development.
ENTER BIG DATA
Big Data refers to massive, increasingly expanding data sets that are too large and complex for traditional data-processing software. When mined algorithmically, Big Data can reveal patterns, trends and associations that might otherwise remain hidden or be unnoticed. This type of data can help the travel industry, as well as the DOD, know when it is time to shift. Dynamic pricing strategies are only possible because of Big Data. For example, airlines use mathematical modeling techniques, including game theory and network optimization, to make informed decisions.
The travel sector generates reams of data from its customers and operations and puts this information to work to optimize route planning, improve resource allocation, reduce operational costs, enhance supply chain management and develop predictive maintenance schedules. Airports use data to decide how highly contested airport slots should be allocated and utilized most efficiently to avoid congestion and flight delays.
Customer relationship management software systems enable travel companies to harness Big Data for the automation of repetitious actions and the creation of customized client profiles. Automation takes on the basic repetitive tasks that humans might find boring. Since computers don’t get bored, they don’t make errors resulting from ennui. Tasks such as payment processing, booking confirmations and the like are moved to automation while human resources address more complex and challenging problems.
Big Data was one of several travel trends presented at Digital Transformation 2025, a travel technology conference held in London in September 2024. Maria Bondarenko, featured speaker and vice president of product for GP Solutions, discussed how businesses can apply emerging technologies to drive growth and efficiency. In her view, these trends have shaped world travel today and will continue to mold its direction for the future. In addition to Big Data and automation, she included the Internet of Things (IoT, i.e., device connectivity across platforms), cloud computing (the ubiquitous access to data and applications anytime, anywhere) and artificial intelligence (AI).
MOBILE ADVANCEMENTS
IoT can be described as a network of connected devices able to exchange information with other devices and systems over the internet. Mobile phones and apps are the most obvious examples, bringing information and interaction into the hands of individual customers. More than 60% of the world’s population had a smartphone in 2024. With these smart devices, travelers can manage their own booking, payment, check-in and navigation tools. They can request personalized recommendations and provide direct feedback to customer service.
Mobile phones have also changed the travel industry because of their geo-location capabilities. A cellphone knows where you are and often what you want in that specific place. Such proximity can be an advantage for both travel operators and their clients, explained Jim Blackwell, digital market leader at BDO, a global business advisory service, adding, “Today the industry is trying to figure it out fast and furious.”
He gave the example of Avis, the car rental company. “It not only sends information in real time about your car booking, but, if there is a problem, it will search online and propose another car or option based on your tastes, needs, preferences and location. Airlines don’t do this well yet.
LOST LUGGAGE - As the volume of lost luggage grows, so do luggage tracking options to deal with it. (Photo by Sergei Sarostin, Pexels)
Industry is also using IoT for luggage tracking. Some suitcases have built-in tracking tools so they can be located with one’s cellphone or computer. Apple’s AirTags are another way to track objects, not limited to luggage. It is no surprise that the global smart luggage market is predicted to rise 13% annually between 2025 and by 2034.
IN THE CLOUD
While mobile advancements enable time- and cost-saving capabilities for customers, cloud computing enables the travel industry to scale up and down quickly—and cost-effectively—based on changing demands for storage and computing power. Travel businesses can avoid large upfront investments in infrastructure and instead pay only for what they use. In addition, from the cloud, travel industry agents, guides and booking managers can access data and applications anytime, anywhere. Cloud solutions are especially valuable when members of the workforce are faced with unforeseen events, whether meteorological or human-made. For example, an earthquake or bombing might destroy a local office, but not the information in the cloud.
Another attraction of cloud solutions is added security, such as strong encryption, multifactor authentication and other features of parallel importance to industry and DOD modernization efforts.
The cloud and security are also first and foremost in DOD thinking. U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert J. Skinner, then director, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and former commander, Joint Force Headquarters – Department of Defense Information Network, laid out his three priorities for DISA in his introduction to its full five-year plan, released in April 2024. They are to build a common information technology (IT) environment, a more robust cloud computing system and zero-trust cybersecurity in both IT systems and the cloud.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI is more than the flavor of the month; it is the technology of the decade. The travel industry is acutely aware of this and is integrating AI into operations at a seriously fast and furious pace as travelers can now plan trips using chatbots such as ChatGPT. A 2023 study by Longwoods International found that one-third of U.S. travelers were likely to use AI to plan their vacations, with that percentage expected to grow in the future.
“Generative AI provides the means of layering a chat-based application with a conversational user interface,” said Ingersoll. “Instead of having to understand commands and queries, you can just ask conversational type questions.” For example, a cruise director won’t need specialized training or language to ask, ‘How many passengers will disembark in Southampton and how many will board? How many eggs will I need for the next week of cruising?’ Faster and more accurate responses and less required training can translate to cost savings.
Ingersoll also pointed out that generative AI can assist with deciphering analytics. “Large amounts of data can be analyzed quickly and put into digestible formats for leaders, again without specialized training. AI can offer first pass insight or warnings and be the front line of scanning to help on the preparedness front,” she said.
INNOVATIONS TAKE FLIGHT - The travel industry has turned to software, hardware and innovation to deal with billions of travelers each year. (Photo by Tom Barrett, Unsplash)
The travel industry is leaning into AI to make sense of unstructured data in particular, elaborated Blackwell. He gave the example of text information, which is very hard to analyze and quantify because it lacks automatic numeric value. AI can consistently identify overall intent and sentiment from the text, and it does so consistently without bias or boredom. It can understand that a “badass” evaluation is good, not bad, which a traditional word search would not be able to do, according to him. AI enables deep data analysis, organizes it into spreadsheets and assigns numeric values. It can then suggest solutions to problems.
“This is not a question of generating new data,” Blackwell insisted. “There is plenty of data out there. It’s a matter of understanding and using the data you already have.”
CONCLUSION
Thanks to advances in trending technologies, the tools to deal with rapid travel industry expansion exist. But there are challenges. The complexity of technology options has ironically driven more people back to using old-fashioned travel agents, increasing agents in the U.S. by 6% over the last five years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The quest for simplicity is one reason. Another is something Rich Harril, a professor at the University of South Carolina (USC) called “soft intelligence.” Harrill is director of USC’s International Tourism Research Institute. He noted that agents learn things about destinations because they have their ear to the market. He advised not to rely on technology alone but also on soft communications from the field. “AI can be a double-edged sword. Decisions can be made faster but AI can also replicate false data,” he added.
Industry and DOD alike need to concentrate on mantras of efficiency, optimization and agility if they are to maximize technology’s potential. They need to balance their customers’ desires for customization with data privacy concerns and security considerations; incorporate the human touch into automated systems; and train their people and their generative AI systems continuously.
“Simplify, simplify, simplify,” Skinner said in the DISA Next strategy. “We need to simplify our processes, we need to simplify the infrastructure, we need to simplify the configurations and we need to simplify how we do business with each other.”
Thomas Cook wouldn’t understand the 21st century technology but he would undoubtedly approve of the people-centric focus.
For more information, email armyalt@army.mil.
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CLAUDIA FLISI provides contract support to the U.S. Army Acquisitions Center as a contributing writer and editor for Army AL&T and JANSON. Her writing has appeared in the International New York Times, Newsweek, Fortune and other publications, websites and books from four countries in three languages. She has an M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. in international relations with distinction from Mount Holyoke College.
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