How to build a clever automated travel companion 🚘
The inception of an AI-driven bot that goes way beyond just providing flight and hotel information
Escapist, learner, planner, dreamer — no matter what you call yourself, if you are someone who travels extensively, it’s likely that you will not have the time to search the web and build an itinerary. Travellers rarely waste time in planning.
“Over time, people will say, ‘I want to go to London,’ and the device will do everything, and you won’t have to do anything.” says — Priceline Executive Vice President, Glenn Fogel
To make travel a smooth experience for such people, we, at KontikiLabs, promote the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) during the development of a travel bot so that travellers don’t have to go through some of the hassles of planning their trip. Instead, they can just pack their bags and fly, because:
AI is not just about clicking buttons but, in a real sense, it is about inferring the social presence or the character of the person who is conversing with the bot. That is, AI should track the user persona.
In the section below, are a few ideas, which if integrated intelligently, can help you construct a smart and an interactive user experience.
How to develop a user persona? 🔎
A high-level of Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) can help in analysing and building the user profile based on social media likes.
The idea is: If a user, via his Facebook profile likes an image ❤ of the Eiffel Tower, the bot should be able to discover that he may wish to travel to Paris. And, from the bot side, the user will be presented with ‘Travel to Paris’ option the next time he lands on the bot.
Contextual information — the intelligence level 🤓
An intelligent and interactive travel bot should not only allow the user to enter different (travel-related) preferences, but should also remember the user profile, including his past travel preferences, last time travelled and other details.
So, if my previous stay was in a 3-star hotel, the bot should consider this and confirm with the user whether they would prefer a similar rating this time around too, before creating a new hotel preference profile in natural language.
Almost a third (29%) of global travellers say they are comfortable letting a computer plan an upcoming trip based on data from their previous travel history and half (50%) don’t mind if they deal with a real person or computer, so long as their questions are answered.
The bot should also be trained to fetch the last travel and stay details of the user when asked.
How plug and play works — plan, book, and fly ✈️
To build an effortless, yet swift user journey, it becomes necessary to complete the entire journey circuit on the same platform.
Instead of going to a website and browsing options from different menus and filters, a bot can be powered by a collection of commands that allow the user to converse and plan his entire journey.
The bot journey should be an engaging experience allowing the user to:
- Plan drafts for later use
- Fetch details about the last travel
- Build complex itineraries
- Personalise travel and hotel recommendations
- Make payments easily
The moment a user shares their geo-location, the bot should become their companion. Considering the user persona-based personalised travel destination or any other location picked, a hotel stay option of the user’s choice should be presented as an option.
The user query may pertain to:
- price query,
- time query,
- preferences query
On opting the desired destination, the user should be able to complete the entire payment process either by scanning their passport or a saved passport, or even sharing details about a new credit card through the mobile app and make payment and identification responses. The bot’s job should not end here. When the bookings are done, a receipt of payment and travel details should be sent as an email to the user.
“We see Artificial Intelligence as an evolutionary part of travel. We’ve always believed that people would go from click-type-tap style searching to a conversational format” : says a Skyscanner spokeswoman
Planning a Group Trip — Because solo travel may not fascinate everyone👫👭
Most people find it easier to travel with friends, who are likely to share in the responsibility of planning trips, than with older family members, who generally prefer to stay out of most of the responsibilities of trip planning. We understand that this can be a challenge.
Which is why, to make travelling with parents easy, we believe that the bot should allow the user to include others in the chat to form a group conversation.
So, the user just adds members and the bot will automatically broadcast the plan for others to indicate acceptance or approval.
Attractive add-ons 🎯
The focus should be on building an extensive warehouse of information that supports the user and makes his journey an amazing experience. To accomplish this, the bot should intelligently switch roles and guide the user through the following:
Alerts! Now you can avail a 🎫 ticket just for $500 —The user should be able to set alerts and get a timely notification in natural language for airfare, hotel prices or any events specific to the trip.
By adopting personal push notifications, airlines are seeing a 9% increase in conversion rates : Travelport
💵 Dollar or 💷 Pound? Which currency to carry — The bot should be smart enough to infer that the travel is international, and provide information about the currency that the traveller should carry, based on the destination opted.
🗽 Places of interest — Filtering out popular tourist attractions may save a lot of time and manage the route to nearby places.
🌤 Weather Forecast — A few clouds: 4° C , Feels like 1° C —
The bot should be able to forecast the weather for an area to help the user decide which place needs a jacket and which one will require a sunscreen. That is, it should offer pop-up suggestions that can help travellers decide what to carry on a trip.
Availability — It travels with you 🛵
The journey should not end post booking. A traveller should get insights into the places while travelling. The user should have the option to get real-time travel news feeds from various sources, filtered according to preference and rules, modifiable by the bot.
Conclusion
Chatbots are proving to create a big boom in the travel industry as they have the capability to provide interactive experience.
Nearly 85 percent of travel and hospitality professionals are using AI within their businesses: Tata Consultancy Services
We, at KontikiLabs, understand the real essence of AI and identify how to strategically leverage the technology along with NLP, at the right time in the customer’s journey. We promote and apply methods that leave our end user with a high-level of satisfaction, as it magnifies their sales and marketing objectives.
