Qantas has launched Qantas Concierge, a Facebook Messenger bot that has been developed to give customers personalised travel inspiration.
As well as searching for flight deals, Qantas Concierge users are able to search for destination inspiration in a number of categories, including cities, beaches, culture and hotels. For instance, someone interested in flying to New York can read content about the best restaurants in New York City, while someone tempted by a trip to Bali can find information on the best spas on the Indonesian island.
Kristin Carlos, Qantas’ Head of Digital and Entertainment, said: “We recognise that different people want to communicate with us in different ways. With over 15 million people on Facebook in Australia, growing our presence with the social networking service makes sense.
“Qantas is committed to being at the forefront of innovation in the way we talk to our customers and the way we help them navigate the complexities of travel. Qantas Concierge is designed to save customers the time and energy involved in planning a trip while empowering them to self-serve from a virtual library of rich travel content.”
The artificial intelligence powered Facebook Messenger bot will learn from interactions and become more user friendly and effective over time. In the coming months, Qantas will extend the chat bot’s capability to offer operational notifications such as itineraries, flight and gate change updates, and boarding passes.
Qantas joins a growing list of airlines to have invested in artificial intelligence chat bots. Others include British Airways, Lufthansa, Icelandair and Thomson.
