Malaysia Airlines, together with Amadeus, has launched MHchat, a new feature which helps travellers book flights and pay through Facebook Messenger.

Jointly developed with Malaysia Airlines as its pilot customer, the Amadeus Chatbot for Airlines is a new solution designed to make it easier for travellers to book flights, retrieve bookings and ask questions through a social media messaging platform customers are already familiar with.

Image source: TTG Asia

On Facebook Messenger, Malaysia Airlines’ customers can use MHchat if they want to look up flights or ask a question related to a booking. The bot will search, locate and push offers or information using artificial intelligence.

Travellers can even complete a transaction, make a secure payment and receive the travel itinerary all within the same app.

The Amadeus Chatbot for Airlines can be customised for any airline, delivering customer satisfaction, more revenue opportunities as well as cost-savings around customer care, according to the launch partners.

Amadeus said it will continue to drive technology improvements and bolster the chatbot with new features including multi-language support, adding ancillary services to an existing booking, and integration with Amazon’s Alexa for voice capabilities.

Thanks to advancements in Big Data and Predictive analytics, Chatbots have been making big strides in travel. Just earlier this year, Sabre Corporation launched a pilot programme of an AI-powered chatbot that leverages Microsoft’s Bot Framework and Microsoft Cognitive Services, a set of tools that organisations can use to add intelligent and conversational features to their applications. Sabre is initially piloting the chatbot with the travel agency Travel Services International USA (TSI) and the travellers they serve.

In another case, Incheon International Airport added a talking robot that interacts with passengers, featuring a message programme that enables it to communicate information about the airport’s facilities to travellers.

The post Malaysia Airlines unveils chatbot for ease of flight booking appeared first on TravHQ.

Yahoo’s new initiative Radar is another one in the foray. A virtual travel guide only available to apple phone users. This app went live yesterday to be downloaded for free. It’s a virtual travel assistant for all the travel woes to be catered while in the United States.

While it would populate recommendations and details on the various traveller queries like details on popular sights to be seen while en route a destination, restaurant recommendations, etc the app would be accepting Yahoo Mail as the primary mailbox. It has a chatbot like an interface which has a less practical feel to it.

The thing which sets Radar apart is that it would tap into the mailbox for any trip information like flight details, hotel or rental car reservations then accumulates into a single app. It provides a highly competitive approach to Google Now as well because of the in hand data it possesses. Any change in the data and it would notify you, be it flight delays, gate change or cancellations, etc. It is not necessary to have a yahoo mail address to be able to use its mailbox features as it announced its ability to manage other providers as well.

It has outsourced data from other portals like Tripadvisor and Yelp to offer other travel information like must see sightings and top-notch restaurants. One can get travel ideas and tips from the fellow travellers and can maintain their own “bucket list” for the destination to be visited.

The bot feature, however, feels a bit dodgy and if it is just an assistant to Tripadvisor or Yelp then honestly, it doesn’t feel too significant. It just adds another step in finding useful information if it comes to opening various apps in the last. Also the ‘only available on iTunes’ is a supporting statement that it is in its testing phase. However, what’s the deal with only the United States?

Source: Techcrunch

The post Yahoo’s Radar is available only on iTunes store, Oh but only United States! appeared first on TravHQ.