Chatbots Take Over the Front Desk in Travel Booking

Continuing my scan of how India Inc is using AI, today I’m looking at the online travel portals. EaseMyTrip lists several AI initiatives, which I’ve summed up below. The immediate focus — for this company and for most customer-facing firms — is the interaction layer for booking queries, details and data. 

The goal is simple: shorten resolution time, cut manpower and costs, and make the process feel smoother. In practice, most of them are pushing more of the detailed back-and-forth onto the customer. The chatbot becomes the first stop, and you’re left navigating a mixed bag of responses.

I’ve used the Emirates and IndiGo chatbots myself, for details on booking, PNR, additions and so on. Both have their strengths. It’s nice not to hear the endless “your call is important to us” loop. But the moment you ask anything even slightly off-track, the bot’s rigid logic shows up- a "non linear" query still suggest you talk to the travel consultant. 

Still, there’s a lot of AI being deployed across the sector — including on our side. One of our expertise, our Jetmetaphy chatbot can now handle several layers of queries with reasonable depth.