Smart Recommendations, Happy Travellers: AI-Powered Itinerary Planning for Tour Operators

With AI on the rise, companies in all sectors are looking at ways to implement the advanced technology to benefit their businesses. Now is the optimal time for travel businesses to start incorporating these smart technologies into their business strategies, in order to increase customer and staff satisfaction, conversion, and efficiency. 

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Revolutionary technologies can ensure that tour operators can use AI to their advantage, creating a competitive advantage over other travel businesses by beating the curve and embracing these new AI-powered chatbots.

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How to use AI to plan travel itineraries

New AI-powered travel technologies have become groundbreaking tools, with the ability to curate itineraries specific to each customer and their specific wants. Customers can use the chatbot to their advantage, informing them about important specifics, such as potential destinations, the type of trip they’re looking for, budget, and any other restrictions, limitations, or preferences that they may have. With natural language processing (NLP), customers are able to communicate and have meaningful conversations with AI chatbots, with zero wait times, allowing companies to collect valuable data and trends of their customers. 

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Once travellers have given their information to these AI-powered travel assistants, they will receive intricate itineraries with personalised recommendations, locations, sights, and hotels based on budget. With all this information, they can make quick, informed decisions, booking directly in the chats - ultimately leading to increased conversion rates as these AI travel assistants work in the moment, allowing for more impulse bookings. Without the need to overthink, the long back-and-forth communications between employees and travellers, and instant recommendations, tour operators will see more bookings on their platforms thanks to the help of their virtual travel assistants. 

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The assistance of AI in the travel industry, gathering information and data from each specific customer and their preferences, leads to better-qualified leads. With the abundance of data and unique answers AI gathers from its NLP chats, tour operators will now have access to better-qualified leads. With all the basics out of the way in regards to itinerary planning, tour operators can focus on adding their human touch to customers, based on all of the intricate information AI has already learned about each individual. This allows tour operators to unleash their creativity and skip the introductory steps of trip planning, and it also ensures that customers are attended to meticulously, with great care for their specific interests and desires.

Many travel companies have already begun incorporating AI into their customer interactions, with companies such as AirBnb incorporating chatbots that are able to give personalised recommendations that fit each customers desire, and others such as Booking.com and Skyscanner offering in-chat bookings, facilitating easy transactions between the customer and the website. (1) (2) The easy interactions have had proven success in both company conversions and customer service. 

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The ability to implement AI into daily routines

AI opens the path for tour operators and travel businesses to optimise their employees' time. With the help of AI-powered chatbots, employees no longer have to spend time on mundane, repetitive tasks, such as answering customers' Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Individual employees no longer have to answer repetitive emails, as AI can answer these questions immediately for customers using company data, allowing for employees to shift their focus to more engaging, creative tasks within the workplace (3). 

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Another advantage for tour operators on a daily basis is the ability for AI to gather and analyse customer data. With AI-driven data analytics, the daunting task of understanding booking trends, market trends, customer interactions, and the analysis of various other data sources can be completely AI-operated, reporting back insightful information to travel companies. Specific trends that may not be noticed in regular data analytics processes are brought to light with the help of AI. With the help of AI in data analytics, tour operators can hone in on specific ways to target their customers. With more information about customers and their travel trends, tour operators can spend time adding personal touches to AI-created travel itineraries, understanding their customers on a level never seen before (4). 

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Furthermore, amongst all the information that AI is able to process from not only data analysis but also customer trends in social media websites, travel businesses are better able to strategise their marketing to better fit their target audience. With AI’s help to learn all about the customer, and truly understand their booking trends, and social media engagement, amongst other intricate patterns to pay attention to, travel businesses' marketing will become increasingly more efficient, with specific abilities to target potential and past customers with advertisements best suited to what the AI sentiment tool discovered, increasing conversion rates. 

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Benefits for both tour operators and customers

With so many AI-powered tools, employees will feel relieved from repetitive duties. Tour operators will be able to harness their creativity, which will allow for travel businesses to represent themselves in a unique way, ensuring they stand out from the crowd. Employees will be more satisfied with the branding they’re putting out, as they’re able to add their distinctive touch to the travel company's image and service that is being put out to its customers. 

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Not to mention, tour operators will be content with the success that AI brings in. With customer service reports improving due to better communication, travel businesses will acquire a great image amongst new and existing customers. Furthermore, with the ability to respond in real-time, in any time zone, in a multitude of languages, AI-powered travel assistants will help to acquire customers worldwide, increasing the range of travel businesses. 

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Finally, customers will be extremely satisfied with the amount of support, not to mention the rapid, in-the-moment support that they are receiving. Meaningful conversations between AI and customers will ensure that customers feel well-attended to, and that their distinctive needs are being met. With personalised suggestions, immediate responses, and the ability to provide further assistance with expert employees specialised in each customer's concern, customer satisfaction is bound to skyrocket, as personalised experiences encourage the traveller (5).  

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How integrating Live the World’s Maya: An AI-powered travel assistant comes into play

Live the World’s Maya is an advanced, AI-travel assistant that has the ability to curate itineraries and trips for individuals, smartly taking into account their personal preferences, analysing their unique data, and creating an impactful trip that is curated to each individual. Maya’s abilities to process human preferences can increase customer satisfaction in travel businesses, ensuring they understand their customers. 

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AI travel planners and assistants such as Maya will only elevate customer experiences, optimising processes and inspiring travellers, while permitting employees to embark on their own creative journeys, adding their own unique personal touch to each itinerary, and also allowing them to delve deeper into customer service issues that require more assistance than AI. 

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In order to beat the curve, travel businesses should incorporate AI-powered technologies like Maya in order to better their services, distinguish their websites, and stand out against their competitors. Implementing tools such as Maya can ensure that companies move faster than other digitised competitors, and it is quicker, easier, and more affordable than developing an AI program in-house or with coordinators. Ultimately, AI-powered travel assistants like Maya have the power to increase conversions within travel businesses, improving employee and staff satisfaction. 

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Sources: 

1. The Motley Fool: How AI Is Being Used in the Travel Industry
2. Mize: 6 Examples of How AI is Used in the Travel Industry
3. Hubspot: AI in Customer Service: 10 Ways to Use It [+ Examples]
4. Matador Network: 5 Travel Companies Using AI to Create Better, More Personalised Trips
5. Public Sapient: How Can Generative AI Improve the Guest Experience?

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