“Can you share some practical strategies or examples that businesses can implement, particularly in the context of the digital transformations accelerated by recent global events?”
Given the uncertainty that recent global events have caused for travellers, a practical strategy for helping to answer people’s concerns and questions in dealing with your tourism business is to use tools like an AI Chatbot on your website. The Chatbot will answer personal questions from potential customers in a live chat using information from your website and FAQ’s.
"What is involved (cost and steps to get started) in adding a AI Chatbot to my website? Is it worth it? Will my customers feel like I am using a robot and not friendly?"
If we use the Yonder AI Chatbot as an example (Yonder is a New Zealand based tourism software company that have developed and trained their AI chatbot for tourism related questions & content) their pricing starts from $90 per month (pricing is based on how many chats you use per month).
Depending on your needs you could get it set up in a matter of days. Yes, absolutely it is worth it because questions are getting answered 24/7 while you sleep and converts more users on your website to bookings.
The difference between the traditional chatbots and the new AI chatbots is that they do replicate human interactions so are much more responsive to personal questions and can be trained to use your brand tone of voice.
"How can we incorporate VR/AR experiences to enhance our tourists' engagement and immersion in our offerings?"
We can provide 2 tourism examples of these:
Augmented Reality (AR) could be used during an experience like on a tour or at a destination, where the person uses their mobile phone to scan a cultural attraction and the “augmented reality” layer pops up to provide additional information about what they are viewing.
Virtual Reality (VR) technology can be used prior to making a booking to give people a life-like sneak peek into what they would get if they were to experience it in real life – like a hotel room and its facilities. SkyMotion is a New Zealand company that is providing travel virtual reality services.
AI Chatbot: "If I type "What's cooler" and I really meant the temperature? How does it handle idiomatic speech? Do we have to learn and use American slang?"
AI Chatbots are trained to continually learn from user questions and put questions into context, so users shouldn’t need to change the way they ask questions.
"The George said it took a number of days to train its AI chatbot. Two questions: what info is needed by the chatbot? and (2) is there a link between this and the SGE info that might be needed to help a business turn SGE into an opportunity by having relevant content? "
Setting up the chatbot would involve a few steps:
- Understanding how the Chatbot works
- Reviewing pre-set questions and responses
- Training the AI by adding your own questions/FAQs
- Testing
SGE wouldn't be able to access any content within your chatbot. However, when it comes to training your chatbot's you would need to provide it with content – in the form of Knowledge base answers or FAQs. This same content could be repurposed for your website – using the steps highlighted in our webinar, future proofing it for SGE.
Search Generated Experience (SGE): "What is the best way to “enhance clickability”?
A few tips to grab attention and enhance clickability:
- Personalised and Relevant CTAs: Try statements like ‘Register Now’ or ‘Discover how’, ‘Grab your Free guide’ or ‘Let’s talk’ instead of the traditional ‘Submit’ or ‘Send’.
- Colours: Use colours that help your CTA's stand out instead of blending into the background.
- Bigger buttons: A larger button also makes that element stand out from the surrounding content.
- Placement: Clickable elements must be within close reach of the user’s cursor (desktop)/thumb (mobile).
"I keep getting pressed by Google to allow it to access my customer base. That to me is breaking my privacy terms. How to resolve?"
Customer Match is a useful advertising tool for many business goals, from increasing brand awareness to driving conversions. Customer Match lets you use your online and offline data to reach and re-engage with your customers.
Privacy is a very valid concern and Google are committed to protecting the confidentiality and privacy of your data. You can read more about it here.
"Are there any other AI chatbots you would recommend?"
Drift, Tidio and Intercom are a few that come to mind. These are great for customer support/service, however aren't specific to the tourism industry.
"PMax (for Travel Goals) being "only available for Hotels" do you mean accommodation of any sort and size or do you really mean Hotels?"
Performance Max campaigns would work with accommodation of any sort, especially if you have a Google Business listing, the only benefit to Hotels would be the additional channel of 'Google Hotels'. With the help of Google Hotels (and a connectivity partner) you can drive bookings without the user having to visit your website.
AI Chatbot: "Do you have any insights in how Tourism NZ is looking at this technology to leverage the NZ experience?"
Great question! We look forward to hearing more from them on this too! Will be sure to ask the question at any upcoming TNZ events we attend. . . watch this space!
