Sector: Autonomous vehicles

10 questions to ask candidates in an AI tourism job interview

February 13th, 2024 by Alex Bainbridge

I am thinking about hiring. Not actually hiring, but thinking about hiring. So with that in mind, I have pulled together some questions that I could ask in a job interview. The more senior you expect to be, the more of these questions I expect you to be able to give a good answer to. […]

Big tech is winning using AI for destination experiences. The sightseeing sector needs to talk

October 18th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

Last week I went to the Arival conference in Orlando and I was surprised by the reaction to the content. Some tour operators were saying too much AI in the schedule. Well I have news for you, your upstream big tech partners are winning AI and you are not part of their plans. Tomorrows experience economy […]

Let’s get physical – comparing Viator, GetYourGuide & Google moving from digital to IRL

August 10th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

In the AI age, you can’t just be a digital service anymore. For the digital only companies this makes it a strategically important task deciding what to do beyond digital. This post is a quick summary of how Viator, GetYourGuide and Google are going physical with three different approaches. Not mutually exclusive of course, but […]

How decentralisation & AI will dominate the next decade and beyond in sightseeing

May 25th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

Too much AI debate in the sightseeing sector relates to generative AI such as text, image & video generation. This article outlines why we should prioritise addressing other forms of AI first, and how we can incorporate decentralised technology approaches within an overall AI strategy. First, why is everyone distracted by generative AI? I believe […]

How San Francisco shapes the future of tourism and robotaxis

February 28th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

Publicly available autonomous vehicles (e.g. robotaxis) are here. My Autoura service is available (for early testing) operating tourism experiences in four US cities – San Francisco, Las Vegas, Austin & Phoenix, using publicly available robotaxis. We have no vehicles ourselves. I have been disappointed that the tour bus sector hasn’t grasped the incoming disruption that […]

What does technology innovation in sightseeing & experiences look like in 2023?

February 21st, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

In the last couple of months there has been a whirlwind of tech news much of it lead by discussion about generative AI such as ChatGPT. But underneath all of that, innovators in our sector have begun to tentatively hint at what they are focussed on. Therefore it is worthwhile documenting what people have said, […]

Is forming a sightseeing industry DAO the only solution to AI centralisation?

January 25th, 2023 by Alex Bainbridge

Generative AI such as ChatGPT is an era defining technology and it merits the number of articles and videos created on this topic. However we are ignoring one core debate, we need to talk about what happens when this and related AI technologies scale, which they will. This article focusses on this important topic with […]

12 reasons why the airline, hotel, experiences & travel retail sectors should care about autonomous vehicles

November 21st, 2022 by Alex Bainbridge

Last week was a big week for autonomous vehicles. Alphabet’s Waymo (Google) showed off their new vehicle for the first time at a Los Angeles launch event. To recap, this is the vehicle that they will use to operate consumer mobility, including sightseeing & airport transfers. This tech is here, this tech is scaling, but […]

Five sightseeing industry technology topics I want to hear about at the Arival conference

September 19th, 2022 by Alex Bainbridge

I haven’t been to a sightseeing industry conference, physically, for years. I haven’t even travelled outside of the UK for 3 years (!). So it is with some trepidation that I am off to the Arival conference in Las Vegas in October. I will be speaking (more on that below) but beyond that, I thought […]

I quit bus sightseeing

June 20th, 2022 by Alex Bainbridge

The project to transition bus owning sightseeing tour operators to autonomous vehicles is no more. I published my original industry transition proposal in 2018 and you can still read it. Fundamentally, since then, I have failed to convince any bus owning tour operators to the point of committed action. This article explains the mistakes I […]