If you’re planning to leave your smartphone or laptop at home when you go on vacation this month, you might want to think again. The unplugged getaway is so last year. Read more “Still checking your work email on vacation? You’re not alone”
Tag: technology
New artificial intelligence promises to make travel a little smarter. Does it?
The Terminator wants to be your next travel agent. Read more “New artificial intelligence promises to make travel a little smarter. Does it?”
This new hotel design concept blurs lines between work and play
As you walk into the 4290 Bistro at the Crowne Plaza Palo Alto, in California’s Silicon Valley, you’ll see a plaque commemorating the property’s place in technology history. It was here that Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn developed the TCP specification in 1973.
Read more “This new hotel design concept blurs lines between work and play”
No more lost luggage? It’s not science fiction
Lost luggage may soon become as rare as lost airline tickets — or, at least, you’d think so when you talk to someone like Randal Collins.
Collins, a flight attendant based in Chicago, left his iPad on a recent flight. He had tagged it with a $25 device called Tile that emits a wireless signal up to 100 feet. It also uses a network of other Tile users to help owners find missing objects.
The tablet proved to be elusive, first tracking at his arrival gate. By the time he showed up to claim it, the plane had been moved to a hangar. Collins reported the iPad missing, and a few weeks later, another Tile user picked up its trail, displaying its likely location in a terminal at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
Read more “No more lost luggage? It’s not science fiction”
The travel industry moves to preempt customer complaints
When Jason Plott’s Western Caribbean cruise was delayed because of dense fog in Galveston, Tex., earlier this year, Carnival offered two possible resolutions before casting off: Either a full refund or an abridged cruise, which included an onboard credit and a discount off a future vacation.
Plott didn’t like either choice.
“It wasn’t enough,” says Plott, a director at a Lubbock, Tex., software firm. His family couldn’t return home early without incurring an airline change fee. And the shortened cruise skipped their favorite ports of call and the offer meant that they’d have to take another Carnival cruise — something they were reluctant to do.
Travelers are faced with decisions like Plott’s every day. Something goes wrong — a flight is delayed, a hotel room is flooded or a rental car breaks down — and they’re made an offer that they have to accept or reject on the spot.
Increasingly, those offers are being generated with the help of technology, either directly or indirectly. Carnival relied on external technologies such as its Twitter account to keep passengers updated, as well as internal systems to proactively deliver a set of identical offers to every passenger on Plott’s cruise before they boarded, according to Aly Bello, a company spokeswoman. “Most of the guests chose the option of sailing on the modified voyage,” she says.
Read more “The travel industry moves to preempt customer complaints”