把我們的旅遊癖變成現實的工具

BBC News – Imagine watching a film or TV show featuring breathtaking scenery. You don't know where the place is but you'd love to visit it one day.

BBC新聞 – 想象一下在看一部電影或一檔電視節目，裏面出現了絕美風景。你並不知道這是什麼地方，但特希望某一天能到此一遊。

Now imagine being able to stop the action, ask your smart TV for the location, then have it work out how to get there, including flight and accommodation details… It's all part of an effort by airlines and other transport providers to broaden their appeal and compete with the new app-based travel companies, such as Airbnb and . They want to give us the tools to turn our wanderlust into reality.

現在，試想一下你能夠停止播放，要求智能電視提供位置，然後讓它制定出如何到那兒的方案，包括航班和住宿詳情……這都是航空公司及其它客運服務公司爲擴大其吸引力，與空中食宿和預訂網等基於應用軟件的新型旅行公司競爭而作出的努力的一部分。這些公司希望給予我們把旅遊癖變成現實的工具。

And travel inspiration can come from anywhere - even episodes of the seminal TV series, Sex and the City. Madrid-based travel technology company Amadeus noticed that during one episode in which the lead characters went to Jamaica for the weekend, there was "an interesting spike in search activity for destination during the programme's ad break", says Rob Sinclair Barnes, strategic marketing director for the firm's IT Group. "This started us thinking about how we could implement the technology to build on it."

而旅遊靈感可以來自任何地方 – 甚至是影響深遠的電視劇《慾望都市》的劇集。總部在馬德里的旅遊科技公司艾瑪迪斯注意到，主角們去牙買加度週末的那一集播放期間，“節目的廣告時段出現了對牙買加的搜索量大增的有趣現象”，艾瑪迪斯IT組的戰略營銷主管巴恩斯說。“這讓我們開始思考如何提供技術手段以從中獲益。”

Amadeus was then approached by US carrier United Airlines to develop a product that could exploit emerging technology from the likes of Apple TV and others. The prototype makes use of GPS location tracking embedded in the filming process. By integrating airline data into the coding, the viewer can be given information on the best flight options and travel deals.

然後艾瑪迪斯就有美國聯合航空公司前來接觸，以開發一種能夠利用蘋果電視及其它同類產品提供的新興技術的產品。設計原型利用了嵌入拍攝過程的全球定位系統的位置跟蹤。通過把航空公司數據集成到編碼中，觀衆即可獲得最佳航班選項和旅行交易信息。

This level of personalisation may not be mainstream reality yet, but it's an indication of where we're heading. And with the data analytics and machine learning capabilities we have these days, we may soon find ourselves booking holidays to destinations we didn't even realise we wanted to go to.

這種程度的個人化可能還沒有成爲主流現實，但它預示了我們的前進方向。以如今我們擁有的數據分析和機器學習能力，可能不久就會發現自己在預訂去甚至自己都沒意識到想去的目的地度假。