Tourism AI model released by Trip.com to make trips better

The first AI foundation model in the tourism industry was released on Monday, featuring an accurate understanding of users' demands, recommendations on tourist destinations and route design, as well as AI customer service.

The model, released by Shanghai-based online travel operator Trip.com, is based on 20 billion tourism data and search algorithms.

A set of lists covering more than 3,000 destinations across the world was released at the same time, ranging from itineraries, hotels, air tickets to tourist attractions.

A list of itineraries will cut the decision-making time of users to 6.6 hours from nine hours, and another list about special offers on air tickets provides recommendations that will cut the budgets of users by 31 percent on average, according to the travel operator.

The model can provide a recommendation service even when the wishes of users are uncertain, and offer options on destinations, hotels, itinerary design and real-time discounts.

It also features AI customer service that can reply to email.

Ti Gong

"We found that AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) was confronted with very big challenges as the answers were not that accurate," said James Liang, chairman of Trip.com.

"Although it cuts the time of itinerary design, the result of hotels or itinerary recommended is about 5 percent wrong, which will affect tourists' experience," he added.

AI foundation models have sparked a surge in the world and there were more than 80 foundation models released in China over the past six months.

It is estimated they will reshape the tourism industry with more reliable services experts said.