Tourism is one of those industries that has been transformed from the ground up by technology. Until a few years ago, booking a flight, a train or a hotel required specialist:inside and a lot of paperwork to sift through to find the optimal trip.
This is no longer the case today: You open Skyscanner or the website of Lufthansa, ITA Spa, Eurowings, Ryanair etc., enters the desired departure and arrival airport, and in less than 10 seconds you are confronted with a series of possible solutions.
But recently, many companies have introduced an even more innovative tool: a chatbot that performs these tasks ... and more! This use of chatbots in the tourism industry is not the end of the line.
Let's take a look together at how chatbots are being used in the tourism industry.
Chatbots for travel and booking advice
With the help of Natural Language Processing a chatbot can help someone understand where he/she wants to go. The chatbot will understand what is meant by romantic vacation or pleasure vacation and filter out the best options.
Formentera? Apulia? Cyprus? The Maldives? 🌹 Or Malta instead? Budva? Barcelona? 🎉
In this way, you get customized, personalized advice that guarantees the best experience. Users are guided through the entire process. And if the chatbot is no longer able to fulfill the user's wishes, employees will step in.
One example of this is the chatbot from TUI Germany.
Likewise, there are chatbots that can be used to book as well as manage one's existing bookings. One example is the chatbot Elisa from Lufthansa, the national airline, which offers great support in this regard.
Chatbots for travel planning
Chatbots for travel planning provide various information about the destination in question: they can tell what is worth seeing, what special experiences are on offer, whether there are tours, etc. In short, a digital LonelyPlanet.
This type of chatbot is often used on websites about a specific place or in travel blogs. One of the main advantages is clearly that visitors:inside the website do not have to search for information themselves in a tedious or time-consuming way. Traveling pleases everyone (or almost everyone), but it requires a certain amount of planning and therefore time. And if you do it in the evening after a day's work, you may be inclined to give up if you don't immediately find the information you want.
But the good news is that this can be avoided. With the chatbot, visitors can be guided to the desired topics and possibly to the booking of a service. And all this under the constant guidance of a digital assistant.
A successful example of this is the chatbot from the website of the island of Norderney, in Lower Saxony.
Chatbots for daily planning
Then there are chatbots whose focus - similar to those mentioned above - is to help visitors:inside plan their vacation days. They are particularly useful if you are already there.
In this case, the information is filtered by days or length of stay, so travelers know what is offered during the vacation.
Events, guided tours and tours information, weather and climate forecasts are presented. Or it is possible that the presence of this tree species, to which many are allergic, in this one street, is reported.
An illustrative example is the chatbot from the town of Büsum on the North Sea, in Schleswig-Holstein.
Chatbots for visitor guidance
The phenomenon of over-tourism is a tangible problem. The most famous and well-known example is that of the beautiful city-island of Venice.
The damage of over-tourism includes pollution (water, air, soil, noise, etc.), damage to the local ecology, overloading of host infrastructures or lack thereof. In addition, there is the overloading of closed and open common spaces and much more. In short, terrible scenarios.
Here, too, technology has intervened. So chatbots have been developed that can contribute to the cause.
There are indeed chatbots that aim to direct the flow of people elsewhere by offering alternative tours to the usual well-trodden paths, lesser-known events, and city or town niches. For them to work, the user:s location is needed so that other basic information, such as weather reports and directions, can be shared.
Augmented Reality Chatbots
Similar to Google Earth, this type of chatbot allows you to be where you want to be - while still on the couch at home. Some websites even offer the possibility to take part in virtual tours, or to learn information about a destination through an avatar.
Playful chatbots
Finally, we must mention the playful chatbots. They are used by tourism companies to entertain the visitors:inside of a website. For this purpose, they tell them interesting peculiarities or stories, sometimes in a playful way - i.e., with a quiz, an activity, etc. They can be located anywhere or at any stage of the customer journey.
Chatbots for Travel & Tourism - Conclusion
Planning a vacation is not only about determining your preferred destination, but also about booking (eventually) a flight or train, accommodation, and/or excursion destinations.
Tourism chatbots are stepping in to simplify these often tedious and unpleasant tasks.
There are a variety of chatbots on the market: there are chatbots for travel and booking advice, for the booking itself, for planning a whole trip or a day.
Furthermore, there are chatbots that are supposed to contribute to the fight against overtourism: They are used to try to distract the masses and lead them to another place, to free a certain place from congestion.
Then there are chatbots that use augmented reality to provide virtual tours or a preliminary impression to understand if the destination is right for you. Here, too, you can discover anecdotes and stories through others playing games.
In general, chatbots are there for you before, during and after the vacation. Before the vacation they help with the formalities, during the vacation they help with the planning and after the vacation they gain experience to help and advise others.
