NYC & Company has partnered with Chute to launch an AI chatbot via social media.
The chatbot will have the ability to learn and respond to travelers through messaging apps, providing relevant and useful content and will be key to reaching visitors to the five boroughs in the future.
According to Forrester Research, people spend about 85 percent of their mobile time using the messenger apps such as Facebook Messenger, Kik, Slack and WhatsApp. There are already 2 billion messages sent between people and businesses each month and that includes automated and people-initiated.
This new messaging capability is an alternative to visitor guides and websites, which have become outdated and makes it easy for travel brands and destinations to distribute their content through a channel that visitors are currently engaging with.
"Our mission is to maximize travel and tourism opportunities throughout the five boroughs by providing resources for visitors to discover everything they need to know about what to do and see in NYC," said NYC & Company president and CEO Fred Dixon.
"However, today's travelers are no longer just going to one resource or turning to visitor guides alone to research and plan," Dixon added. "With so many outlets, it's vital for destinations to be at the ready and reach travelers wherever they are."
The messenger bot's capability is boosted by quantitative and qualitative analysis by real humans. It was developed by Chute, a user-generated content platform for travel brands and destinations.
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Chute's primary business focus is to help leading brands engage with people on new levels.
"At Chute, our goal is to help travel brands tell better stories-whether that's through using the earned content being shared about them by visitors during or after a trip or reaching potential travelers when they're researching and planning," Ranvir Gujral, Chute's CEO said.
"Today, the average wait time for a reply to a Facebook message to a brand is 10 hours. That's unacceptable in a world where travelers have so many other resources at their fingertips. Desi Bot furthers our ability to give travel marketers a holistic suite of tools to reach people instantaneously during every stage of the traveler journey," added Gujral.
In addition to helping travelers find the most relevant news, content and promotions, the bot is capable of helping marketers, too. Marketers can extract analytics on the quality of conversations, the popularity of questions and more to help inform future bot content and better understand travelers' needs.
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