An AI-powered context-based chatbot, TripGen gives instant travel tips, inspiration and itinerary suggestions. Rose Dykins reports
Trip.com has launched TripGen, a chatbot designed to provide travellers with live assistance through AI technology.
Trip.com provides personalised search solutions for flights, hotels, and travel guides. Its new TripGen service takes things one step further with an advanced context-based Natural Language Processing-integrated (NLP) chatbot powered by AI, that’s currently available in four languages.
Trip.com developed the technology to offer users customised travel routes, itineraries and booking advice in real time via Trip.com, which aims to make travel more accessible with its all-in-one app.
Users can ask the TripGen chatbot questions – either complex or vague – when they’re making pre-trip decisions and in-trip arrangements. In these moments, users may be starting with very little idea of how they want their trip to be.
They can ask TripGen initial fragmented questions such as: “Where should I go?” and “What should I do?” and follow up with more specific questions like: “What’s unique about this place?” and “What’s it going to cost me?”
In response to their questions, users instantly receive relevant AI-generated answers through suggestions for flights, hotels, ground transport and tours, helping to ease the stress of trip-planning.
Amy Wei, senior product director at Trip.com Group and product owner of TripGen, says: “Time is precious, but planning is always so time-consuming and stressful. There is so much information available to users, and often it’s overwhelming. As a travel-holic who visited over 40 countries, I completely empathise with other travellers’ pain points and difficulties in preparing for a trip.”
Understanding the difficulties consumers face when planning and preparing for a trip, Wei and her team integrated AI technology to help solve this complex and stressful process, providing efficient and valuable real-time assistance for travellers, and equipping them with: “closed-loop services before, after and during their trip.”
Schubert Lou, COO of Trip.com, says: “The goal of Trip.com is to become your trusted trip companion. The release of TripGen provides real-time, question-and-answer services in the Trip.com app, resulting in greater, faster, and more diverse support for travellers. TripGen currently supports English, Japanese, Korean and traditional Chinese. More languages will be added depending on user needs.
“On the technical side, TripGen has integrated the OpenAI API, which developed ChatGPT based on GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture. In the future, we will consider other NLP model alternatives and continue on our journey to provide the ultimate product experience for travelers.”