The Travel Network Group has created a Digital Assistant for its members, which one agent described as a possible ‘gamechanger’.
Free to use, the Digital Assistant will be able to answer members’ queries, such as how to defend a card chargeback or respond to a complaint under the Package Travel Regulations, provide detailed customer quotes including a list of suppliers, and create business plans.
The Digital Assistant was unveiled at TTNG’s overseas conference in Bucharest, which is being attended by 400-plus delegates. TTNG Gary Lewis: “All of a sudden you and your team have the ability to ask questions in an AI environment and get the right answers immediately.”
He said it will use ChatGPT as well as TTNG’s own knowledge bank to respond to members’ queries. “It understands whether you are a retail travel agent or a tour operator, it understands the ATOL Package Travel Regulations, it understands chargeback, it has all the knowledge of our business within a secure environment,” he said.
“Also, where you are trying to create a booking, you can go off outside that environment, through ChatGPT, to pull off all that information back into that secure environment.
“For example, if you’re sending a customer to Italy, you can go in and ask which of your customers sell Italy. You’re sending them to Rome, it brings back to you the itinerary with the wows of Rome – the food, the culture, the weather, a specific event that happens to be on that week, with the links and connections.”
In addition, it can help members create a business development action plan, with different action points for each team member, added Gary.
TTNG member Scarlett Cryans, a homeworker with Arrive Relax Travel was impressed. “It will save us a significant amount of admin time and it will help us find suppliers in areas where we might not have so much experience,” she said.
“It could give us some ideas we hadn’t thought of, and if it includes hotel reviews, even better, I think it will be a game-changer,” added Scarlett, who specialises in more complex, multi-centre itineraries.
Kriss Saunders of scuba diving specialist ARCA Origins said: “If this enables us to get quotes out in 10 or 15 minutes, we will be able to get more quotes out, it will definitely save us time.”
During a panel session on stage during the TTNG conference, Off Broadway Travel founder Tricia Conroy-Smith said they were already using AI in her business. “We use it a lot, we always check it, but we use it, and we are looking forward to using this.”
Mark Swords, co-founder of Wimbledon-based Swords Travel said he hadn’t seen ‘anything like’ Digital Assistant. “I think AI is one of those things you’ve got to embrace. We all worry it’s going to take our jobs but where you will lose out is if you don’t embrace it,” he said.
“I feel like it saves you so much time and that efficiency and that time is what is going to put you ahead.”
