AI for travel agencies: quotes, packages and assistance to travellers

The AI for travel agencies saves time on the work that surrounds the sale: the vague request to bring to a quote with dates, flights and accommodation, questions about documents, prices and waivers that arrive before departure, calls from those who have a problem while on the road. An assistant attached to your suppliers and contracts prepares drafts and first answers, and the agent confirms.

In the agency, however, almost every answer has a legal weight. The Tourism Code, in the text rewritten by Legislative Decree 62/2018 to transpose the Directive (EU) 2015/2302 on travel packages, it binds to precise definitions information obligations, guarantees and responsibilities. An assistant who combines flight and hotel chat can create a package without anyone noticing, so his rules are written from the norm.

When the proposal made in chat becomes a tourist package

The Code identifies four types of tourist service: passenger transport, non-residential accommodation, car and vehicle rental, and other tourist services that are not part of the first three. For the Art. 33 a package exists when at least two different types of travel service are combined for the same trip and one of the listed conditions is met: a single trader combines them before a single contract is concluded; or they are purchased at a single point of sale and selected before payment, offered, sold or invoiced at an inclusive or total price, or advertised as a “package”. The definition also covers online bookings in which the customer’s name, payment details and email address are passed to another trader, and the second contract is concluded within 24 hours of confirmation of the first.

For an AI assistant these conditions are operating instructions. An answer such as "flight and hotel, all inclusive, at this price" is the description of a package, with everything that follows. The same applies to the site that, after the flight, proposes the hotel of a partner by passing him the customer data.

The quote and information to be given before signing

Before the traveller is bound, the Art. 34 asks the organiser, and the seller when there is, to deliver the standard information form in Annex A and a precise list of information. These are the fields that a package quote must contain:

• destinations, itinerary, dates and number of nights;
• means, categories and times of transport, stops and coincidences;
• Location and category of accommodation, including meals, tours and excursions included in the price;
• approximate size of the group, language of services, suitability for people with reduced mobility;
• total price with taxes, fees and additional costs, down payment and balance schedule;
• minimum number of participants and deadline within which the organizer can cancel if it does not reach;
• general information on passports and visas, with approximate time to obtain them, and health formalities;
• Expenses of withdrawal, optional or compulsory insurance, extremes of protection in the event of insolvency.

An AI assistant works well on this list because it is a mechanical check. Compose the draft with supplier data, report the empty field (the category of the hotel that the supplier did not indicate, the return time not yet confirmed) and attach the right form. To generate ever-equal documents the schema is that of the document automation with AI.

The last field is about customers' money. The Art. 47 provides that package organization contracts are assisted by insurance policies or bank guarantees that, if the organizer or seller becomes insolvent, ensure the reimbursement of the price paid and the immediate return of the traveler when the package includes transport. The assistant reports the coverage details from the agency's registry, identical in every quote.

An example. A couple writes on WhatsApp on Sunday evening: "We would like to go to Japan in spring, for about ten days, with a mid-range budget." The assistant asks for the departure airport, flexible or fixed dates, travel style and interests, then prepares a draft with two flights and three hotel combinations drawn from the agency’s suppliers. On Monday morning, the travel agent finds the complete case file, makes a selection, corrects the itinerary and sends the quote with the information form. General passport and entry information comes from the country’s official information sheet, not from memory.

Passports, visas and health formalities: answers only from official sources

Questions about documents are the most frequent and the most risky. The site Safe Travel, edited by the Crisis Unit of the Farnesina with the ACI, publishes ballots for each country with updates on safety and health conditions, and the ministry recommends rechecking them just before leaving because the situation and rules of foreign countries change. For visas, a check with the consulate of the country of destination is always advisable.

An AI assistant here doesn't have to "know" anything. You must search for the official card at the time of the application, report its content with the link and date of consultation, and add when the referral to the consulate is needed. It is the principle of RAG: the answer arises from documents recovered at the moment, not from the memory of the model. For a minor travelling, for an expiring passport or for a dual citizenship the application passes to the agent.

Price increases and waivers: the answers that the assistant does not improvise

After signing the price can rise only if the contract expressly provides, and only for three causes: the cost of fuel or energy in transport, taxes and fees imposed by third parties, exchange rates. L'Art. 39 requests that the increase be communicated on a durable medium, with justification and calculation, at least 20 days before the start of the package; if it exceeds 8 per cent of the total price, the traveller has the rights to Article 40, including the right to withdraw without charge.

Think of a tour operator who sold a group trip to Jordan when the airline applies a fuel surcharge. The assistant calculates the increase for each traveller, checks that the clause is in the contract and that the departure is far enough, prepares the communication with the calculation and sends it to the agent for approval. If the increase exceeds the threshold, it opens a practice for each traveler, because everyone can choose whether to accept or withdraw.

The withdrawal follows the Art. 41. The traveller may withdraw at any time before departure, by paying adequate and justifiable expenses or the standard expenses provided for in the contract. It pays nothing if unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances at the place of destination or nearby substantially affect the package, and the organizer reimburses within 14 days. In contracts negotiated outside business premises there are five days to withdraw without penalty, excluding cases of significantly discounted rates compared to current offers.

During the trip: who responds to the customer stuck at the airport

The Code does not leave assistance to goodwill. The Art. 45 obliges the organiser to provide adequate assistance without delay to the traveller in need: information on health services, local authorities and consular assistance, help to communicate at a distance and to find alternative tourist services. A reasonable cost can only be asked if the problem caused it by the traveler, intentionally or through his fault.

An assistant on WhatsApp, also active at night, covers the first part of this obligation. For each practice it has the destination card with emergency numbers, contact details of the consulate and the local correspondent, and uses it to respond immediately. At the same time notify the agent on duty with the summary of the practice: the booking of an alternative flight or hotel for the night makes it a person. How to build a channel like this is explained in the guide to WhatsApp chatbots for businesses, while to sort the requests after sale is useful the ticket management with AI.

Five Mistakes an Assistant Makes an Agency

1. Confirm prices and availability read the day before, when airfares and hotel availability change from hour to hour. Each proposal must indicate when it was calculated.
2. It combines services from different providers in chats without knowing that it is building a package.
3. He answers on visas by heart, with outdated rules.
4. He tells a client that he can give up for free for a weather alert, when it is up to the agent to determine if there is an unavoidable and extraordinary circumstance.
5. It sends the communication of an increase without the calculation, or close to the start, and makes it questionable.

All five are born from the same defect: an assistant who responds to make the client happy instead of reading contracts, cards and rules of the agency. The remedy is to write those rules first, as with any customer care with AI.

Neighborhood agency or tour operator: the first step is different

If you sell mainly packages of others, start from the control of quotes: information form, fields of art. 34, details of the organizer's warranty. It's a repetitive job, and a mistake there weighs more than a slow response. If you build tailor-made trips or organize groups, start with on-the-go assistance and price review management, where the organizer has direct obligations and tight deadlines. In both cases an agency that also manages hotel stays finds other useful flows in AI for hotel.

The framework for tourism and hospitality is on the page AI for tourism and hospitality. If you want to know what steps of your agency you can entrust to an assistant without discovery with respect to the Tourism Code, the AI audit by Giallo Studio starts from your quotes and real contracts and delivers you the list of flows to be automated first.