PETALING JAYA: From balancing tourist flows to creating seamless, personalised journeys, interest groups say artificial intelligence (AI) is set to transform the way people travel.
They add that AI can no longer be treated as an option as it is now an essential tool to boost efficiency and productivity.
However, they caution that its adoption must be built on ethics and trust to strengthen tourist confidence.
Pacific Asia Travel Association chief executive officer Noor Ahmad Hamid said enhancing the travel experience goes beyond infrastructure upgrades and must include utilising artificial intelligence.
“Take Kuala Lumpur International Airport, for example. We need to look at efficiency and how we can use AI to improve this,” he said.
Noor Ahmad added that Changi Airport has about 3,000 cameras linked to AI to understand movement in the building, from check-in counters to customs, and see how the entire customer journey can be enhanced.
“This is one way we can start empowering ourselves,” he said on Thursday (Sept 11).
He was speaking at the AI X Tourism conference organised by the Tourism Productivity Nexus of the Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC), United Nations Development Programme and the Digital Travel and Technology Association of Malaysia.
Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry deputy secretary-general (management) S. Surrendren said AI is already changing how travel plans are made.
“From building itineraries to forecasting demand, these are not experiments for tomorrow but tools already improving experiences, increasing productivity and strengthening business performance,” he said.
He also said AI creates opportunities to re-imagine the visitor experience on the ground.
Surrendren then said that the adoption of any technology must be guided by trust and responsibility.
“While industry leaders are eager to embrace AI, surveys show that fewer than half of travellers fully trust businesses to use it responsibly,” he said.
This gap must be closed. Travellers want confidence that their data is protected, that algorithms are transparent and fair, and that the warmth of human hospitality and authenticity remain central to their journey,” added Surrendren.
MPC deputy director-general Mohamad Norjayadi Tamam said awareness, uncertainty over return on investment, and integration complexity are among the main barriers for smaller businesses adopting artificial intelligence.
He said Malaysia already has the scale, creativity and institutional will to make AI the new productivity engine of the country’s visitor economy.
“The evidence is already here, in our logistics sector, construction sites, and across our hospitals. We must translate these wins into tourism, grow value per visitor, and lift national competitiveness,” he said.
