Across industries, chatbots have been a surprise element in the world of marketing.

Who would have imagined that we would be interacting with a chatbot instead of a human customer service or sales representative? Chatbots provide personalized and interactive communication.

The travel industry is customer-centric and for travellers, it becomes easy to plan their trips with chatbots answering their queries. Chatbots can accompany travellers during their journey and assist them with their requirements.

It is also a hassle-free way of providing a comfortable customer support experience without having to connect to a call centre and wait endlessly to reach the customer service executive to get a solution.

Travel chatbots

• The travel industry is now digitally driven and people choose to book tickets and plan trips online
  
  
• They rarely consider offline options. Chatbots are but an answer to this shift and have become a necessity in the travel industry
  
  
• A traveller would have to go through many sites before having to finalize the travel plan
  
  
• Instead, a chatbot could help save time for the traveller and give a one-stop solution
  
  
• Chatbots assist and expedite the decision-making of a customer by accompanying them at each juncture
  
  
• Let’s say a traveller wishes to plan a holiday and has various queries while planning a trip
  
  
• A chatbot can assist in decision making may it be with regards to choosing a destination, flight bookings, tourist spots, car bookings, or hotel bookings
  
  
• When customers or travellers have their queries answered immediately it develops trust and a strong relationship between the traveller and the tour operator or destination management company. This leads to business growth
  
  
• Travel chatbots are software solutions, which use conversational AI to communicate with customers through apps and business websites or social media
  
  
• So, AI helps to provide a better planning and travel experience
  
  
• Also for tour operators and destination management companies, chatbots provide an easier and more efficient solution to attract and close leads thus, boosting the business
  
  
• Also, for travellers, it becomes difficult to connect with different agencies/ companies catering to every specific requirement
  
  
• At times a single mistake can impact further steps and the whole travel experience might not be desirable
  
  
• This might make travellers rethink the trip. But at crucial junctures, if a chatbot guides travellers it would result in a hassle-free and memorable experience
  
  
• Thus, a chatbot is a one-stop solution for all travel needs.

Let’s look at how chatbots are impacting the travel industry.

What is the importance of chatbots in transforming the travel industry?

1. Boosts efficiency and saves time

• There are certain common questions asked by travellers to customer care executives about airlines, hotels, tourist spots, travel planning, etc

• It is time-consuming to repeatedly answer these frequent questions and troublesome too

• Let’s say an interactive chatbot answers these questions and takes away the burden from the shoulders of the customer care department

• An interactive AI chatbot can efficiently resolve these queries. Answering these frequent questions is also monotonous and saps productivity

• In fact, your human resources can invest their time and efforts in focussing on productive functions that call for strategic decision-making, which certainly requires human intervention

• Historian Yuval Noah Harrari and author of the book, ’21 lessons for the 21st Century, believes that people who pursue careers involving a high degree of creativity will be safe from losing jobs due to robots and other technologies.

   

2. Valuable Data Storage 

• You would be surprised to know chatbots can churn out valuable data that can help make decisions vital for business growth
  
  
• Registering valuable insights from a customer conversation is not always possible in a telephonic conversation
  
  
• But if you are a tour operator or a destination management company and opt for a customized chatbot application it can provide you with some valuable information about buying patterns, traveller experiences, feedback, etc
  
  
• This can help in modifying the customer experience as per the customer's requirements
  
  
• For customers, it gives easy access to their queries and it’s convenient too.

   

3. Immediately satiate curiosity and provide quick solutions

• Let’s say a customer is trying to find out available flight information for an urgent trip. But in spite of calling a travel agency or tour operator, no immediate answer is available; this could irritate the customer

• But if a chatbot immediately answers queries to resolve the solution the customer is retained

• Also, when travellers are eager to know more about a particular package and don’t get immediate answers to satiate their curiosity, they would lose interest and the tour operator will lose a business opportunity.

   

4. Customized recommendations

• With AI and machine learning, chatbots retain information about customers as the chat progresses

• This information is used to improve chat conversations and solutions rendered by the chatbot in future conversations

• This can lead to asking more questions to further get detailed information and clarify preferences

• Thus, tailored recommendations can be provided.

   

5. Customer engagement

• Travel chatbots are available 24x7, 365 days a year to answer queries

• Thus, none of the customers gets disappointed nor do they have to wait to plan their travel

• This enhances customer experience in the travel industry where customers are travelling across the world in different time zones

• Natural Language Processing lets the chatbot understand varied queries as it recognizes important words from the customer’s query

• This is similar to personalized chatting where answers are available to any question and provide for what customers need

• This boosts customer engagement.

   

What could be the future of Tourism or Travel Chatbots?

As chatbots become more sophisticated and precise to answer specific customer queries it will enhance customer service and will make the business of tour operators cost-effective. Technology has certainly improved our lifestyle and for travel operators, it’s a boon.

Also, with the aim to become more customer friendly in the competitive world, lately, there has been a shift from text-based chatbots to voice-enabled chatbots.

Voice-driven chatbots are taking the lead now and as technology brings further transformation the travel world will change rapidly.

ETOS is contributing to the travel world by providing user-friendly online travel technology solutions for tour operators and travel agents. Boost your sales, get qualified leads and better manage your processes to render a delightful customer experience by getting in touch with our team.

You can also request a free demo by clicking on this link http://www.etosglobal.com/request_demos.