Current solutions include: Trip Planner for group travel coordination, Dynamic Travel Guides for destination selection, and Amenity Answers for personalized hotel selection.
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ExpediaCandice Tang, Vice President of Technology, Developer Experience at Expedia Group, emphasizes the deliberate strategy behind integrating AI across various aspects of the travel experience. According to her, AI influences everything from booking to shopping to adjusting travel plans, significantly enhancing the platform’s capabilities over the years.
In her role for the past year, Candice concentrates on optimizing the developer experience, leading a team dedicated to automating repetitive tasks. This allows developers to focus on addressing complex technological challenges efficiently. By enhancing Expedia Group’s developer toolkit, Candice’s team ensures swift onboarding and enables developers to commence coding immediately, fostering a conducive environment for innovation.
Candice highlights the company’s commitment to reliability, security, and efficiency, providing developers with common AI tools and infrastructure. Expedia Group has undergone a complete overhaul of its tech platform in recent years, facilitating rapid innovation and integrating AI and ML comprehensively into its operations.
One notable development is the introduction of intelligent features across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo, aimed at revolutionizing how travelers explore new destinations, collaborate with peers, and receive prompt AI-generated responses to common travel queries.
The company’s overarching focus on creating experiences “By Travelers, For Travelers” ensures customer satisfaction and fosters loyalty. Candice emphasizes the importance of building experiences that align with the expectations of travelers, incorporating passion and excellence into every stage of the journey.
When asked if she had any tips when it comes to using technology in the planning process, she shared the following is now available for travelers in their apps:
- Take the stress out of group travel with Trip Planner – This tool makes it easy to share and refine travel options with family and friends. Your group can like, comment, save ideas, and more.
- Use Dynamic Travel Guides to pick the best destination for you – The guides are great tools to dive into specifics into hotel prices, weather conditions, and crowd levels for the most visited cities in the world. You can also use ChatGPT tool within the guide to help identify the ideal neighborhood to stay, based on your interests.
- Discover the perfect hotel for your needs with Amenity Answers – Try Amenity Answers tool to quickly shift through guest reviews to narrow down your hotel or vacation rental choices — especially if you have a few non-negotiables like great Wi-Fi or a spa to recover after a long flight.
In addition to enhancing the travel experience, Candice prioritizes fostering an inclusive work environment at Expedia Group. She actively supports the company’s Inclusion Business Groups (IBGs), such as the Black Expedia Allied Movement (BEAM), and participates in events like AfroTech to engage with the broader tech community.
Source: Expedia
