(TAN): Airline alliance oneworld and artificial intelligence (AI) company Elemental Cognition have completed initial trials of their state-of-the-art booking tool that helps customers navigate the complex process of planning a “round the world” ticket.
With hundreds of possible destinations and millions of possible flight combinations, these “round the world” tickets are some of the most complicated products in the industry. In contrast to the general shift towards online channels, the majority of these trips are still booked with human agents, oneworld said in a news release.
[ALSO READ: Mandarin Oriental is building a new hotel in Athens, aims for 2027 opening]
oneworld challenged EC to build a solution that combines the power and flexibility of the best human agents with the convenience and efficiency of a self-serve technology solution. Leveraging EC’s reasoning, natural language understanding, and dialog capabilities, the solution understands a customer’s needs, helps them weigh options and trade-offs while proactively warning them of potential issues. All while navigating the complex product rules and ever-changing flight availability.
The initial results are promising — those customers using the new tool are four times more likely to create bookable itineraries that meet their requirements than those using the standard interface.
“As our customers plan their next international adventure, we are focused on improving the experience for travellers booking a oneworld Round the World ticket. We’ve partnered with Elemental Cognition to elevate the technology powering our booking experience, and ease the challenge our customers face when planning such complex journeys,” said oneworld CEO Rob Gurney.
[ALSO READ: Travelzoo META promises ‘the future of travel’ in Metaverse]
Elemental Cognition CEO David Ferrucci said, “Accommodating customer preferences while navigating complex product rules and ever-changing flight availability is a perfect demonstration of the power of our AI technology. It is great to see it help oneworld’s customers transform their travel ideas into their dream trip.”
