Thomas Cook India has launched its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform to help users book tour itineraries, adding itself to a growing list of firms that use technology for customer acquisition and sales growth.

“Creating a customised travel program has traditionally been an arduous task for holiday experts: from the discovery-research stage to creating an itinerary and then pricing and booking. This involves coordination with several disparate sources, with multiple external suppliers for various components such as airlines, hotels, attractions, local transportation, etc. The average time frame involved is between 48 and 72 hours, or more. With the Thomas Cook and SOTC’s AI-based platform, customised trip planning will now become seamless – in under 10 minutes,” the company said in an announcement on Monday.

The platform has been deployed with sales staff for now. Over the next few months, customers will have direct access to the platform via the company’s websites and apps.

Apart from curating travel itineraries, AI is helping companies in bettering customer engagement and grievance redressal. These initiatives come on the back of a strong rebound in the travel sector and forecasts of India becoming the fourth largest domestic travel market by 2030.

First in India: ixigo’s ‘Plan’

MakeMyTrip has expanded capabilities of its generative AI-assisted chatbot named 'Myra' to assist customers with international flight bookings.

“It can suggest the cheapest travel days for a destination and perform searches based on simple chat commands. We plan to make Myra more and more intelligent using customer insights in the future,” MakeMyTrip’s founder and group CEO Rajesh Magow told analysts in a post-result conference call last month.

Last July, ixigo launched an AI-based travel planning tool called ‘Plan’ becoming the first Indian online travel agency to launch such a feature.

According to the company’s group co-CEO Rajnish Kumar, the travel planning tool is assisting one lakh users each month to plan trips efficiently. Similarly, over 86 per cent of customer queries are being addressed by its AI chatbot called ‘Tara’.

"Building and launching new AI-enabled products helps drive stickiness, which over many years leads to growth in topline and bottomline. The art of innovation is not always about solving problems, but about finding the right problem to solve at the right time. Many times building these products and features has no short to mid-term monetisation. However, these products create customer delight which drives word of mouth, stickiness and organic growth," Kumar added

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