Two companies took to the stage this morning at ITB Berlin 2024 to extol the virtues of bringing in new technology to work with them on their offerings.
Speaking in the opening sessions of the day, Matthias Huwiler, MD at FTI Group, and Benno Iten, CDO at Twerenbold Reisen, spoke about the ongoing relationships their firms had with the technology firms Nezasa and The Trip Boutique AI.
Joining them on stage were Manuel Hilty and Fernanda Barrence, the respective CEOs of the two firms.
“What is the CTO of the 129-year-old travel company doing on stage?” said Iten, jokingly, in his opening remarks. He then detailed how The Trip Boutique AI had helped Twerenbold Reisen modernise its business practices.
Barrence also took to the stage.
She said: “Indeed, AI is still scary for most traditional types of organisations. They do wonder how to start. What I can ensure is that we do the heavy lifting. In one case, we just had to access data and then sort it out. We will do the structuring, the refinements, and proposals so clients can get the best possible outcome. We lower the hurdle of entering the AI world so clients can use it.
Iten said that the hurdles towards digitalisation were that the process needed to be broken down into smaller steps, with goals set at the end of each one.
“There’s a little bit of everything in there,” he said. “The hurdles are that you have to take those small steps and you do need to define goals at every step. And you also need the courage to say ‘stop’ at times because you are not getting the result that you expected and it’s time to try something new out. But it’s good to have some adventures in order to see how things work!”
The other firms on stage, FTI and Nezasa, acknowledged that the process is an ongoing one.
Huwiler said: “We started in 2016 and we’re not finished yet. There are a lot of challenges. But Manuel of Nezasa understands what we are doing, and that is why we are still here.”
He added: “Once we are done, I have so many ideas around things that we can still accomplish.”
Exclusive LIVE coverage of ITB Berlin 2024 by our own team of journalists and bloggers. This is strictly a 4Hoteliers.com exclusive feature. Reproduction in any shape or form without explicit permissions is prohibited.
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