Undoubtedly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed the landscape of most industries, and in this case, the Travel industry is no exception. It enables the traveler to plan trips and enjoy it in various ways, offering a more personalized, efficient, and convenient experience. A few instances of what AI can do for travelers include: 

• Personalized Recommendations: AI algorithms can analyze large amounts of data about travelers’ individual preferences, past travel history, interactions on social networks, and reviews from other travelers to provide personalized recommendations for destinations, activities, accommodations, and restaurants. 
• Route and Itinerary Optimization: It can analyze multiple variables, such as travel time, distance, traffic, public transportation schedules, and tourist attractions, to create optimized itineraries that maximize travel time and efficiency. 
• Crisis Management and Travel Changes: During crisis situations, such as flight cancellations or medical emergencies, AI can help travelers manage these events more efficiently by providing updated information, options, and assistance in reorganizing travel plans. 
• Virtual Assistants and Chatbots: AI-powered virtual assistants and chatbots can provide instant support to travelers throughout the planning and travel process. They can answer common questions, provide recommendations, assist with ticket booking, and provide real-time assistance while travelers are on route. 

In this scenery we can work with Syntphony Conversational AI, the virtual assistant platform from NTT DATA that will improve the traveler experience through conversational voice and text assistants and will support different companies in the travel industry such as agencies, airlines, hotels, trains or cruises to potentially reduce the number of calls to the call center among other important savings. The company design experiences that seamlessly extend the traveler’s journey across various platforms, aligned to the unique values of each brand. 

This technology has been implemented in a word renowned airline, who was facing the critical need to ensure exceptional customer service in the middle of a rapid surge in conversation volumes. In addition, due to the economic and social challenges impacting its operations, the airline aimed to achieve this objective efficiently. 

 The Cognitive Contact Center service (CCaaS with C-AI) was implemented in a cloud-based environment, featuring a Virtual Assistant capable of managing customer interactions across over 35 countries through various channels, including web platforms, mobile applications, WhatsApp, call centers with support for more than 50 phone numbers and more. 

The system’s focus is to have a better experience on crucial use cases such as check-in processes, live updates on flight statuses, seat change requests, efficient ticket management, handling travel documents, and compliance with current travel regulations. As results were tracked over than 300.000 calls per month and worked in more than 35 countries including: USA, Germany, UK, France, Portugal, Italy, Spain, México, Perú, Colombia, Chile and Argentina. 

 “The solution developed for this airline has allowed for an enhanced customer experience and a reduction in the number of calls to the call center. Conversational AI-based technology enables the implementation of dialogue systems and virtual assistants to personalize and improve passenger relationships by better understanding their needs.” said Virginia Chumillas Gómez Del Olmo, responsible of the project at NTT DATA. 

Even though the industry is changing, prioritizing user experience remains crucial in establishing trust with travelers. According to the Forbes article “How Will Artificial Intelligence Impact The Travel Industry?”, “81% say if they were using AI to help plan a trip, they’d want to double check all the information given to them by the AI before making any decisions based on it”. This underscores the importance of delivering accurate information and meeting the highest security standards, a commitment upheld by NTT DATA and  Syntphony Conversational AI for over 20 years in the airline market and beyond.