Technological advancements in the industry continue to “break down barriers”, but travel companies must consider those people for whom tech is not as easily accessible, according to experts at this year’s International Women in Travel and Tourism Forum (IWTTF).
Speaking on a panel titled ‘Fostering innovation by removing barriers to entrepreneurship and harnessing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and technology’, the founder and chief executive of female travel platform Greether urged businesses not to get ahead of themselves when designing advanced technological systems.
Vanessa Karel (second left) praised recent advancements made in artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR), but warned there are parts of the world where even using the internet can be a challenge and that must not be overlooked.
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Vanessa: “It’s really important that we are all aware that technology is so different depending on where you are in the world, for example, tech isn’t she same for us as it is for women in Sri Lanka, Vietnam or Peru.
“When we are thinking about how to implement technology, we have to think about those people and how we can make tech accessible for them.
“In my company, we work with women in all parts of the world and sometimes even jumping on a Zoom call is hard for them.
“It’s very cool that AI is the hot topic of the year, but we have to think about those people who aren’t as privileged as us and how we can help them.
“There are still a lot of people with a lot of access problems so we need to solve that first.”