Lessons from the travel industry: 3 digital tools to support pandemic response

The travel industry has screeched to a halt during the pandemic as cities put stay-at-home orders in place and travelers grow weary of big crowds.

Airlines and hotels have turned to digital tools to aid in their response and prepare for eventually resuming services, according to The Wall Street Journal. Hospitals often turn to other industries for inspiration on boosting their services and patient experience, and preparing for the post-pandemic health system is no different.

Here are three digital tools the travel industry is using:

1. Fever screenings: A private airport in Washington state is using a camera developed by a security firm that was designed to detect criminals with guns at banks and schools to screen passengers for fevers, alerting management if someone has a temperature of more than 100.5 degrees. If a passenger is identified as having a fever, they are screened a second time, and the airline will decide whether that person is able to board the plane.

2. Robotic process automation to issue refunds: With travel declining due to the pandemic, many vacationers have requested refunds for their travel and hotel stays. A software company that originally developed process automation technology for the hospitality industry is now automatically extracting ticket information for customers who want refunds and issuing e-vouchers for future use. The artificial intelligence-enabled bot can make refunds in three minutes, much faster than the agents who typically take 20 minutes. According to the report, one airline that implemented the technology was able to jump from responding to 500 requests per day to 4,000 requests per day without adding employee support.

3. Autonomous robots for disinfection: Hotels are boosting their infection control game with robotic technology originally developed for hospitals. They are using high-intensity ultraviolet light delivered by robots to disinfect rooms and are now able to clean "dozens of rooms a day" with a robot that takes two minutes to clean a room.

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