Richard Turen
Well, we made it -- a new year filled with a fair share of new and enhanced challenges in a travel landscape that is throwing obstacles at us that we have not faced before. Like bots that imitate travel advisors, money-toting tourists who some locals seem to feel are an undue burden and folks abroad who seem to think that our leaders always project with remarkable precision who and what we are.
I've been thinking about some of the topics, problems and even solutions I want to kick around with you this year. Here are a few topics we may want to discuss:
• Where is AI taking us? We simply don't know. None of the major players in this game are anywhere near profitability. The total infrastructure cost is likely to be in the range of $2 trillion. Plus there are serious construction issues, like insufficient electrical output, in the remote parts of the country where most of these giant storage/power facilities are going to be built. So let's all chill for a while.
My take is that AI may have a greater impact on personal dating than it will ultimately have on the travel planning process.
• Uber knows where it is taking us. Up? Prepare for the rapid growth of driverless aerial ridesharing, as Uber simply wants a coordinated air-and-ground attack on transportation. They aim to combine ground and air transport, letting users summon flying taxis to vertiports via the Uber app for seamless journeys.
Flying around town in a self-driving Uber could be an improvement, as it will likely remove one little pesky problem: Court documents reviewed by the New York Times show there have been 400,181 official reports of sexual assault or misconduct involving Uber trips between 2017 and 2022.
• The global river cruise market is, based on several industry studies, the fastest-growing segment of the travel industry. Current estimates place the annual growth rate over the next 10 years at 11.2%, compared with an average of 3% to 7% across other major categories, such as hotels, tours and cruises. That translates to river cruising as the only segment likely to see double-digit growth.
I do wonder about parking all of these new riverboats at night. Who is providing the parking spaces? If the boats are increasingly going to be berthed next to one another, can we at least project some lovely night views onto a screen covering their windows?
• May we assume smooth sailing and welcome arms abroad for American visitors on cruise and tour programs? My answer is, "Of course."
I mean, it is not like we have just bombed the most populated country on the African continent or that we don't seem to be able to do much about the war raging against the second-largest country in Europe. It is not like America's largest Naval ship, the Gerald R. Ford, will be mistaken for a cruise ship when it bombs suspected drug boats in the Caribbean; the aircraft carrier accommodates 2,500 fewer passengers than the largest cruise ship sailing in the region.
The Scandinavians, particularly the Danes, seem to get tiffed over nothing. Like when we suggest we may invade Greenland. Then we pulled out of the Paris Accords, and we operate on the assumption that "climate change is a hoax," which, for some reason, seems to upset the Europeans.
Then there are the Canadians who start spilling their Tim Hortons coffee cups when it is suggested we may make them the 51st state.
Perhaps when we start requiring that those entering the U.S. to vacation reveal all of their email and phone messages over the past few years, our inbound numbers will dramatically improve!
No worries. It is going to be a calm year ahead. Just remember to do what the producers of TV's "Survivor" do: Make sure that your clients do not wear logo clothing when traveling overseas.