8 Alarming AI Predictions Tour Business Owners Can’t Ignore

Grab our free 24-page workbook with over 50 practical and proven AI prompts for tour business owners: guestfocus.com/aiworkbook
Artificial intelligence is the go-to tool for business and it’s important to get on board now, before you get left behind. If you look around you, AI has infiltrated our lives and the tourism industry. And it’s not going away.
The good news is that there are some incredible opportunities for tour business owners to leverage the technology, if you’re aware of what to look out for.
This week, I’m sharing some alarming predictions that will change the way you think about and interact with AI. And I’ll tell you how you can shift your thinking about AI so you can use it to grow a thriving, profitable tour business.
AI is not the end of boutique tour business companies; it’s giving you a way to save time and money and democratizing the accessibility of technology tools so the playing field is more level. It’s going to allow you to personalize your services even more, in a time when people are craving unique and human-centered experiences.
The secret sauce is using AI to be more guest-focused. Our Guest Focus Formula™ can help. Find out more! guestfocus.com/guest-focus-fo...
For more free resources to help you grow your tour business, visit guestfocus.com/resources.
#tourbusiness #touroperators
P.S. If you want help in growing your tour business, book a strategy call today at Calendly.
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Since 2015, our programs have helped over 2,000 tour operators from 75+ countries. Our tour business coaches have over 100 years of combined industry experience and work through our proprietary Guest Focus Formula™ to sustainably grow client businesses. 🚀

[@daleatusaraft2287]

Thanks for this! The only thing I feel like you skipped over was the impact on staffing in the longer term. Tour companies like the adventure resort where I work, are going to have very different staffing needs in 5 years of AI growth and I wonder what the impact will be on our very unique culture. I hope that we’ll be replacing displaced office staff with more guide staff because of the increased effectiveness of the business in general!

[@ContinentalDrifter]

Great video, Kelsey. I'm just realizing how important this technology is and how it can help my travel business. Please keep sharing your knowledge.

[@RebelCityTour]

Nice Kelsey.
"AI won't replace your job; someone using AI will though". A distinction without a difference?

[@guestfocus]

Hey everyone, feel free to grab our free 24-page workbook with over 50 practical and proven AI prompts for tour business owners: guestfocus.com/aiworkbook

[@expedition_bali]

That last one... no way. The tour guide is dead in the next five years. Accurate, reliable information that preserves the cultural heritage and significance of the area or site. Tour guides are unreliable, don't turn up, have information that contradicts another guide, lacks education, OMG the list could go on:
Lack of training or experience.
Not all tour guides are created equal. Some may have only a basic knowledge of the area they are leading tours in, while others may have extensive training and experience.
Language barriers.
They cant be fluent in all languages. We get tourists from Russia, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, it's unreasonable to expect a human tour guide to know all these languages and have great accurate knowledge of your tour.
Personal problems.
Tour guides are human beings, and they are just as likely to experience personal problems as anyone else. If a tour guide is sick or has a family emergency, they may have to cancel or reschedule your tour.
Not an AR guide. An AR guide wont ask for pay rises, will be there every day no matter the weather. Doesn't sleep, can speak any language, and will have the most accurate information available (in your language) on any given day, even on Christmas day if thats the day you want to take a tour.
I'm willing to bet, that my AR guide avaiable in less than 12 months will be such a hit, I will be in front of every other tour company in the region doing the same tours I'm doing right now. I'm willing to bet that in five years, ... well lets just say that the Personalised by a Human tour ... in five years, will be old skool. In fact, I'll put this in my calendar with this link to this video and report back in.

[@Etabyeta]

I am a Tour Guide. I do agree with you. However, specialist Guide in a field or subject will most likely survive.

[@expedition_bali]

@@Etabyeta Although I don't agree with you, I understand why you would think this way. Our guides are specialised, I'm sure they'll be drivers within five years.

[@RebelCityTour]

Nope.
Guests don't like interacting with computers. They prefer real guides.
Have self-guided tours replaced in-person tours?

[@expedition_bali]

Not yet. However I'm happy people go with what they believe and not with the actual data. This thinking gives me an advantage for years. This alone has had me successful in so many businesses in the past. I love that people think this way. Some examples "Computers, arrrh these are just toys, they wont last long" - 1984 or "Google... noooo, Alta Vista is way better" - 1998 or more recently "TikTok... why are you advertising on that platform, it's just for kids dancing" - 2020. Hahahaha. My all time favourite "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
If you don't believe that the world quietly transformed when AI & AR collided, that's exactly the thinking I've relied upon for me successful in so many businesses I have had in the past. People believing nothing will change, and everything remains the same. Perfect.
I'll always use a driver to get my guests to where the AR is. Drivers are easy to find, and are grateful to have a job. Guides can be pretentious, over confident when things are going well (You try and replace me now, there are no other guides and we're so busy), however, the guide who doesn't complain, is always "Johny on the spot", never takes a day off, never wants a pay rise, always has accurate information, doesn't use his "creative adjustments" on what actually happened. My guide can speak three languages, is that enough, no, I need Russian, German, French, English, Italian, as my top five, there are of course more like we get the occasional Indian, Chinese Japanese, and a few others. That's the guide of the future. That's AR.
This isn't crypto, a solution looking for a problem to fix. This is a problem, and AR with AI is the answer. (Unless you have a better solution. Staying with what we have is not a better solution, it's just what we have.)
Just last night my guide told me he was busy doing ceremonies. He has made it clear that his religion comes first before family, before the business, and some would argue that's how it should be. AR takes the argument away.
If you are arguing with your partner over who does the dishes each night, buy a friggen dishwasher, don't keep arguing right? AR is to tours, what a dishwasher is to the kitchen. It saves arguments and shifts a problem along. Now the argument turns to "who empties the dishwasher". What will AR cause the needle to move on... Don't know yet, however you would admit that putting the clean dishes away is better than washing, drying and then putting the clean dishes away. AR will not fix everything, however we are sliding in the right direction.
The quote for AR was $8,000 - $10,000 USD. I don't pay that much in a year for wages, so I wont be getting AR this year. (developing country) However there will be a time when the wages will go up, and the AR prices will come down, at that point of intersection, I'll spend a years wages to buy a dishwasher (AR) to get rid of the hassle, and shift the needle.
I expect the value of the business to be very lucrative to a potential buyer that doesn't have the first clue about a tour business. They wont have to know, AR knows it. All they will need is good business practices. This can be taught anywhere.