Part 3 – Are Chatbots the new travel agents?
Artificial intelligence-infused chatbots are becoming an option for both travellers and consultants, providing them with travel-planning assistance.
A conversation with a Chatbot is performed in the same way a traveller would ask a travel agent to investigate travel itineraries and come up with suggestions of great places to visit.
Matador Network, the world's largest independent travel publisher recently surveyed 1 400 travellers and found that more than a third were likely to use AI to research or plan their travel within the next 12 months.
What is the difference between a Chatbox and a Chatbot?
A Chatbox is a chat interface that pops up when a website user clicks the chat icon or bubble that allows the user to interact with a live agent. It is an automated and very simple means of providing site visitors with help on topics pertaining to a specific website. It is a basic implementation that pertains only to information provided on a company’s website.
An AI Chatbot responds in natural language to questions posed to it, as if it were a real person. An AI chatbot can initiate a natural conversation with users and keeps track of customer behaviour with the help of data collected from past conversations. The data is used to analyse the tastes and preferences of customers and offer a personalised experience. The Chatbot responds using a combination of pre-programmed scripts and learned algorithms. When asked a question, the Chatbot will answer using the knowledge database that is currently available to it.
An example of using a Chatbot to plan a trip
“I have eight days and want to visit Madagascar with my best friend.”
When asking for advice, be as specific as possible. Tell the AI who you are, the reason behind your trip and how much time you have. Instead of saying: “I want to go to Madagascar,” say: “I want to go to Toamasina, Madagascar. I am 56 years old, I’m travelling with my best friend and our budget is R14 000 each. We would like to see lemurs in the wild, snorkel and we want to eat at local restaurants.”
Deeper into the exchange, Chatbot will provide practical information, such as what transportation options are available between South Africa and Madagascar, what transfers or transport is available, options for visiting national parks to experience lemurs in the wild, recommended restaurants and snorkel safaris.
In an interview with Time magazine, Frederic Gonzalo, a travel and hospitality expert and digital marketing speaker and consultant said: “Before ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, you’d have 50 people do the same 50 searches for a weekend in New York, and everyone would get the same results. Now it’s really going into this hyper-personalisation and getting content adapted to everyone’s reality.”
Gonzalo said, for now, the AI tool’s main strength lies in helping travellers plan their trip or find activities at their destination, but it is not yet sophisticated enough to help with things like booking a flight, which is where a travel agent has the upper hand. “The value of human connection or the fun in the process of planning travelling is still very important.”
