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23 Jun 2020

Travel-19: Helping travelers make informed choices to navigate COVID-19



As some countries begin to open their borders and travel takes the first tentative steps to resuming in a post-lockdown scenario, travelers have innumerable questions regarding flights and regulations in the countries of origin and destination. To help travelers navigate through this sea of information and to provide access to timely updates and advisories from countries and their governments, Amadeus' Innovation team within the Strategic Growth Businesses division has designed a basic chatbot named Travel-19 to address COVID-19 related travel queries. The tool, an attempt to answer urgent needs, provides a repository of frequently updated information from various official sources within a single site to help travelers plan and manage upcoming trips amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

In the initial days of lockdown, travel providers and travel sellers were managing unprecedented levels of inquiries from passengers on topics as diverse as cancellation policies to deciphering government advisories to determining the next course of action. Now, as some countries begin to lift travel restrictions, questions on the status of the outbreak at destination, country policies for foreign visitors, cancellation policies are bound to arise. In that context, the chatbot aggregates links to different sources of public information into one easy-to-use interface. Travelers can then get answers quickly about planned or future trips.

The chatbot interface is intuitive and simple – travelers can address questions such as, 'I don't know if my country will allow me to travel' or 'I'd like to know if there are any restrictions at the destination I am planning to visit.' The chatbot aims to answer basic travelers' queries and help ease the uncertainties and stress of travel as people begin to plan and travel again.

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