From automatically generated itineraries based on the user's mood to voice-assisted booking in Indian languages, here's how AI is set to make travel accessible to all
From personalised guest interactions and automated travel itineraries, to voice-assisted bookings, AI is transforming the travel and hospitality sector. Image: Shutterstock
Travel bookings have long been pain points among customers, with the process often marred by complexities, overwhelming options, and time-consuming searches. However, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), online travel aggregators (OTA) are now offering features such as personalised and automatically generated itineraries and voice-assisted bookings to transform the process into a more streamlined and user-centric experience.
Take these innovations, for example.
In July 2023, OTA Ixigo introduced ‘Plan by Ixigo’, a trip planner built on OpenAI. With this, the platform can process and understand users’ preferences, and offer them personalised recommendations, suggestions, and itineraries. Alternatively, if users have a destination in mind they will be able to select from a range of trip themes or provide their preferences for a customised trip plan. 'Plan' will automatically tag, map and generate a detailed itinerary for the chosen destination and chosen theme, additionally integrating weather and air quality index updates.
“Since the launch, we have generated 30,000 new itineraries,†says Rajnish Kumar, co-founder and group CPTO. “Our objective was to make travel accessible to all. We’ve ensured that the recommendations are accurate and factually correct.â€
Soon, Ixigo plans to introduce features to enable users to collaborate with friends and family for an interactive trip-planning experience.