This ad campaign for travel wants to know all about your trip

Ads for travel will increasingly resemble a conversation with a travel agent, if a new chatbot-propelled campaign is any guide.

Austin-based WayBlazer, which previously had been employing its AI-powered travel recommendation engine for various travel agency websites, has now partnered with Dubai-based Emirates Vacations to create a conversational campaign utilizing a text-based chatbot.

The companies say their efforts are the first to utilize chatbots for travel ads. IBM’s Watson-powered chatbots have previously been used in online ads for Campbell’s, Toyota, Theraflu and other non-travel brands.

The initial Emirates Vacations campaign ran this past November and December for 30 days, and WayBlazer says it resulted in an 87 percent lift in user engagement compared to traditional click-through ads. A second chatbot-embedded online campaign began last week and is currently in progress.

The chatbot opens the conversation by asking the user to enter text about an upcoming trip.

Through natural language processing, responses are processed through WayBlazer’s intent engine, with the chatbot asking various trip-planning questions and making recommendations for destinations and vacation packages provided by Emirates.

To turn talk into revenue, the conversation can lead to a link to an Emirates Vacations website, or it can be tossed to a human travel agent.

[Article on MarTech Today.]

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.