Where AI Agents Will Beat Humans in Hospitality — and Where They Still Won’t
Reading time: 17 min
Glossary
0-9
A
- AAA Five Diamond Award
- Accommodation
- Accounts receivable
- Active segment
- Activities in travel
- Activity operator
- Adjoining rooms
- Administration costs
- Adult only hotel
- Advance purchase
- Advance Purchase Excursion (APEX) fare
- Adventure travel
- Affiliate program
- After-departure charge
- Agency agreement
- Agency business model
- Agency debit memo
- Agent error
- Agent2Agent protocol (A2A)
- Agentic AI
- Agentic workflow
- Agritourism
- AI agent
- AI alignment
- AI hallucination
- Air carrier
- Air Miles
- Air taxi
- Aircraft cabin
- Airline alliance
- Airline consolidator
- Airline fare
- Airline Reporting Corporation (ARC)
- Airline ticketing
- Airlines for Europe (A4E)
- Airport code
- Airport gate
- Airport Management System
- Airport security check
- Airport shuttle
- Airport slot
- Airport tax
- Airport transfer
- Airside
- All-inclusive resort
- Allotment
- Alternative accommodation
- Alternative tourism
- Amadeus
- Amenities
- Amenity kit
- American plan (AP) in hotels
- Ancillary revenue
- APAC
- Applicable fare
- Application Programming Interface (API)
- ARC number
- Arrival Unknown (ARNK)
- Artificial general intelligence (AGI)
- Artificial intelligence (AI)
- Artificial superintelligence (ASI)
- Association of Retail Travel Agents (ARTA)
- Association of travel agents
- Attention mechanism
- Attribute sampling
- Autoencoders
- Automated Ticket and Boarding Pass (ATB)
- Availability
- Average bed rate (ABR)
- Average Daily Rate (ADR)
- Average length of stay (ALOS)
- Average rate index (ARI)
- Average Room Rate (ARR)
- Aviation deregulation
B
- Back of house (BOH)
- Back-to-back ticketing
- Backpacker
- Backpropagation
- Backtracking
- Baecation
- Baggage allowance
- Baggage policy
- Balance sheet
- Banker’s buying rate (BBR)
- Banker’s selling rate (BSR)
- Banquet event order (BEO)
- Base fare
- Base model
- Basic economy
- Bayesian networks
- Bed and breakfast (B&B)
- Bed bank
- Bed nights
- Bespoke tour
- Best available rate (BAR)
- Bias in machine learning
- Bigram
- Billboard effect
- Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP)
- Blackout dates
- Bleisure
- Blended travel
- Block allocation
- Block hours
- Boarding pass
- Booking code
- Booking confirmation
- Booking curve
- Booking engine
- Booking pace
- Booking reference
- Booking window
- Boutique hotel
- Break-even point (BEP)
- Breakage deposit
- Bucket shop in aviation
- Budget hotel
- Bulk fare
- Bulkhead seat
- Bumped flight compensation
- Bumping
- Bundled pricing
- Business class
- Business hotel
- Business mix
- Business travel
- Business travel account (BTA)
- Business travel program
C
- Cabin rental
- Campsite
- Cancelation policy in a hotel
- Cancelation rate
- Capital reserve
- Capsule hotel
- Car allowance
- Car rental reservation system
- Carbon credits
- Carbon offset
- Card mill
- Carry-on bag
- Carrying capacity
- Categorical data
- Central Security Record (CSR)
- Centralized billing
- Certified Travel Associate (CTA)
- Chain hotel
- Chain of thought (COT)
- Channel management
- Channel manager
- Chargeback
- Charter service
- Chatbot
- Check-in
- Checked luggage (checked baggage)
- Checkout
- Circle Pacific fare
- Circle trip
- City guide
- City pair
- City tax (tourist tax)
- City terminal
- City tour
- Class of service
- Classical machine learning
- CLIA
- Close of Business (COB)
- Close out
- Closed to arrival (CTA)
- Club floor
- Club ticket
- Co-terminals
- Coach class flight
- Codeshare in aviation
- Collision damage waiver (CDW)
- Comfort letter
- Commission
- Common carrier
- Competition-based pricing (competitive, competitor-based)
- Competitive set
- Complimentaries
- Compute
- Computer reservation system (CRS)
- Concept drift
- Concessionaire
- Concierge
- Condo hotel (condotel)
- Confidential tariff
- Connecting flight
- Connecting rooms
- Connectivity provider
- Consortia
- Consortia rate
- Constrained demand
- Contact center
- Contactless check-in
- Context window
- Continental breakfast
- Continuous pricing
- Contrastive Language–Image Pretraining (CLIP)
- Conversion rate
- Convex function
- Convolutional neural network (CNN)
- Corporate fare
- Corporate travel department
- Corporate travel management (CTM)
- Corporate travel manager
- Corporate travel program
- Cost of Walk (COW)
- Cost per mile (CPM)
- Cost per Occupied Room (CPOR)
- Cost per transaction (CPT)
- Cost-plus pricing
- Country house hotel
- Country of commencement
- Country of payment
- Crew management
- Cross-selling
- Cruise line
- Culinary tourism
- Cultural tourism
- Customs
- Cut-off window
D
- Daily delegate rate (DDR)
- Data augmentation
- Data scraping
- Dataset
- Day rate
- Day tour
- Deadhead in aviation
- Decision boundary
- Deep learning (DL)
- Demand-based pricing
- Denied Boarding Compensation (DBC)
- Departure gate
- Departure tax
- Depth of inventory
- Deregulation
- Design hotel
- Destination management company (DMC)
- Destination wedding
- Diffusion
- Digital concierge (virtual concierge)
- Digital nomad
- Digital nomad visa
- Dine-around plan
- Direct booking
- Direct connect
- Direct fare
- Direct flight
- Direct spend
- Directional fare
- Disaster tourism
- Discount fare
- Discount rate
- Distressed inventory
- Distribution
- Distribution channel
- Distribution mix
- Distribution strategy
- Domestic travel
- Double occupancy
- Double open jaw
- Double room
- Double-booking
- Downsampling
- Drop-off charge
- Duty of care
- Duty-free
- Dynamic content
- Dynamic packaging
- Dynamic pricing
E
- E-ticket
- Early check-in
- EBITDA
- EBITDAR
- Economy class
- Ecotourism
- EDIFACT
- Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
- Electronic miscellaneous document (EMD)
- Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)
- Electronic ticket record (ETR)
- Embedding
- Emergence
- En suite
- Encoder
- End-on-end combination
- End-to-end learning
- English breakfast
- Equivalent fare paid
- Estimated Time of Departure or Delivery (ETD)
- ETA
- Ethnic tour
- Eurail Pass
- European Plan
- European Regions Airline Association (ERAA)
- Excess baggage
- Excess mileage surcharge
- Excursion
- Excursion fare
- Executive card
- Executive coach
- Executive room
- Exit row
- Expense fraud
- Expense management
- Expense policy
- Expense reimbursement
- Expense report
- Experiences
- Experiential travel
- Expert systems
- Explainable AI (XAI)
- Extended stay hotel
- Extranet in OTA
F
- Facilities
- Factuality
- False negative rate (FNR)
- Familiarization tour
- Fare basis
- Fare buckets
- Fare family
- Fare rules
- Fine-tuning
- First class
- First officer (FO)
- FIT (Free Independent Traveler)
- Flag carrier
- Flight booking
- Flight coupon
- Flight delay
- Flight delay compensation
- Flight leg
- Flight seat map
- Flight segment
- Fly drive
- Food & Beverage Services
- Food tourism
- Form of identity
- Form of indemnity
- Form of payment (FOP)
- Forward propagation
- Foundation model
- Frequent flyer number
- Frequent flyer program (FFP)
- Frequent renter program
- Front desk
- Front office
- Fuel surcharge
- Full board (FB)
- Full economy (full-fare economy)
- Full house
- Full to full exchange
- Full-service carrier (FSC)
- Full-service hotel
- Fully independent traveler (FIT)
G
- Galileo GDS
- Gate agent
- Gateway city
- GDPR
- GDS operations
- Generalization
- Generalized linear model (GLM)
- Generative adversarial network (GAN)
- Generative AI (GenAI)
- Generative AI models
- Ghost card
- Gift voucher
- Glamping
- Global Business Travel Association (GBTA)
- Global Distribution Systems (GDSs)
- Global Entry
- Global Indicator (GI)
- Globe-trotter
- Go-around
- Golden dataset
- GOPPAR (Gross Operating Profit per Available Room)
- Governing carrier
- GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer)
- GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)
- Gradient descent
- Ground operator
- Ground time
- Ground transportation
- Guaranteed hotel reservation
- Guaranteed tour
- Guest travel
- Guild of European Business Travel Agents (GEBTA)
H
- Half board (HB)
- Half round trip fare
- Head tax
- Heritage tourism
- Hidden layer
- High-season travel
- Higher intermediate point (HIP)
- HORECA
- Hospitality
- Hospitality manager
- Host travel agency
- Hostel
- Hotel add-on
- Hotel billback
- Hotel chain
- Hotel classification
- Hotel content mapping
- Hotel family plan
- Hotel folio
- Hotel loyalty program
- Hotel prepayment
- Hotel reservation system
- Hotel sourcing
- Hotel star rating
- Housekeeping
- Hub airport
- Hub and spoke
- Hurdle rate
- Hush trip
- Hyperparameter tuning
I
- IATA
- IATA accreditation
- IATA code
- IATA number
- IATA Rate of Exchange (IROE)
- IATAN
- ICAO
- In-flight entertainment
- Inbound tour operator
- Inbound travel
- Incentive travel
- Incidentals
- Independent hotel
- Inference
- Instruction tuning
- Interline baggage agreement
- Interline e-ticket
- Interlining
- Intermediate stop
- Internet booking engine (IBE)
- Inventory system in travel
- IROPS (Irregular Operations)
- Island hopping
- ITA software
- Itemized receipt
- Itinerary
J
K
L
- Land arrangements
- Landside (in the airport)
- Laptop luggers
- Large language model
- Last room availability (LRA)
- Last-minute booking
- Latent space
- Layover
- Lead booker
- Lead time
- Leakage
- Legroom
- Leisure travel
- Length of stay
- Lido deck
- Limited-service hotel
- Load factor in aviation
- Local currency fare
- Lodge card
- Lodging
- Lose-it rate (walk-away rate)
- Loss damage waiver (LDW)
- Loss function
- Low season
- Low-cost carrier (LCC)
- Lowest fare routing
- Loyalty program
- Luxury travel
M
- Machine learning
- Managed travel
- Manifest
- Marine travel
- Market Number (MK)
- Markup
- Markup pricing
- Married segment
- Maximum Length of Stay (MaxLOS)
- Maximum Permitted Mileage (MPM)
- Meal basis
- Medical tourism
- Merchant model
- Merchant of record
- Metasearch engine
- MICE tourism
- Microstay
- Mid-office
- Mileage reimbursement
- Mileage run
- Minimum connection time (MCT)
- Minimum length of stay (MinLOS)
- Miscellaneous charge order (MCO)
- Mixture of experts (MoE)
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Model training
- Motorcoach
- Multi-agent system
- Multimodal model
- Museum docent
N
- Named entity recognition (NER)
- National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
- Natural language processing (NLP)
- Nautical time
- NDC fare
- Negotiated fare
- Negotiated rate
- Net operating income (NOI)
- Net rate
- Neural Network (NN)
- Neural radiance fields (NeRF)
- New Distribution Capability (NDC)
- Next Generation Storefront (NGS)
- Niche hotel
- Night auditor
- No show
- No-frills airline
- Non-last room availability (NLRA)
- Non-rev (revenue) passenger
- Nonrefundable
- Nonrefundable rate
- Nonstop flight
- Nontransferable ticket
O
- Objective function
- Occupancy rate
- ONE Order
- One-way car rental
- Online booking tool (OBT)
- Online travel agency (OTA)
- Opaque rate
- Open booking
- Open jaw flight
- Open Skies
- Open ticket
- Operating carrier
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
- Order management system (OMS)
- Outbound
- Outbound tour operator
- Overbooking
- Overfitting
- Override commission
- Overtourism
P
- P-card (procurement card)
- Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA)
- Parameters in AI
- Passenger Name Record (PNR)
- Passenger offloading
- Passenger Service System (PSS)
- Passive segment
- Pax
- Pay-per-click (PPC)
- Payment card industry (PCI)
- Peak season
- Penalty excursion fare
- Per diem
- Petty cash
- PIR number
- Point of sale (POS)
- Point-to-Point
- Policy compliance
- Port of entry
- Preferred supplier
- Prepaid expenses
- Pretraining
- Price elasticity of demand (PED)
- Price elasticity of supply (PES)
- Price point
- Primary carrier
- Priority boarding
- Private fare
- Promotional fare
- Prompt engineering
- Property management system (PMS)
- Property policies
- Pseudo city code
- Public fare
Q
R
- Rack rate
- Railway reservation system
- Rate loading instructions
- Rate parity
- Rate plan
- Rate shopper
- Reason code (RC)
- Recommendation engine
- Recommended Retail Price (RRP)
- Reconciliation
- Reconfirmation
- Record locator
- Recurring expense
- Red-eye flight
- Redress number
- Reinforcement learning (RL)
- Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF)
- Reservation
- Responsible tourism
- REST APIs
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
- Return journey
- Revalidation
- Revenge travel
- Revenue management
- Revenue management system (RMS)
- Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR)
- RevPASH
- Road warrior
- Room service
- Room type
- Rooming list
- Round trip
- Route deal
- Routing fare
- Run of the house (ROH)
S
- Sabre
- Schengen Visa
- Seasonal rates
- Seat downgrade
- Seat pitch
- Security surcharge
- Self-guided tour
- Self-service reservation
- Service charge
- Service fee
- Service level agreement (SLA)
- Short-term rentals (STR)
- Shoulder season
- Side trip
- Single supplement
- Skiplagging
- Sleeper train
- Slow travel
- Smart card
- Smart hotel
- SOAP APIs
- Soft opening
- Split ticketing
- Sports tourism
- Standard room
- Stateroom on a cruise
- Static content
- Staycation
- Stopover
- Suite
- Sundry expenses
- Supervised learning
- Surcharge
- Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)
- Sustainable tourism
- Switch (travel technology)
- Symbolic Artificial Intelligence
T
- Tariff
- Tensor
- TensorFlow
- Through fare
- Through passenger
- Ticket reissue
- Tiered pricing
- Timatic
- Timeshare
- Tour guide
- Tour manager
- Tour operator
- Tourist attraction
- Tourist card
- Tours and attractions (T&A)
- TPU (Tensor Processing Unit)
- Trade show
- Training data
- Transfer learning (TL)
- Transformer model
- Transit lounge
- Transit point
- Transit visa
- Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
- Travel advisory
- Travel agency code
- Travel agent
- Travel and expense management (T&E)
- Travel disruption
- Travel dwell time
- Travel fraud
- Travel insurance
- Travel management company (TMC)
- Travel policy
- Travel reseller
- Travel rewards
- Travel risk management
- Travel voucher
- Travelport
- TRevPAR (Total Revenue per Available Room)
- Trusted Traveler Program
- TSA pre-check
U
V
W
Y
Z
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