San Diego launches an AI chatbot for trip planning
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Maybe the AI bot would recommend surfing. GIF: Claire Trageser/Axios
AI for travel planning has gotten more and more popular, and now the San Diego Tourism Authority hopes to get in on the action.
The big picture: It launched an AI chatbot in July that helps website users pick local destinations and build an itinerary.
- The goal is to lead folks to tourism authority content and make it easier to plan a trip, Brent Bernasconi, director of digital marketing at the San Diego Tourism Authority, told Axios.
How it works: Type in something like "best beers in San Diego" on the authority's site and the chat bot will recommend several and then point you to information on each.
- The bot recommends businesses that are paying tourism authority members first, Bernasconi said.
- After primarily pushing members, the bot will expand to recommend other local businesses using verified information from the tourism authority's website.
"We all know AI lies, so the more we can do to try to figure out how to ensure that information we've already vetted is out there, the better," Bernasconi said.
Context: The tourism authority is a private nonprofit that promotes San Diego.
- It gets its money from a 2% hotel room fee managed by the San Diego Tourism Marketing District.
- The tourism authority declined to share how much they paid the AI travel company Mindtrip for the bot, but spokesperson Marie Tutko said the price was "very reasonable."
Zoom out: While people already frequently use ChatGPT and Claude to plan trips, Bernasconi said a chatbot is almost expected on such sites these days.
"It just makes it a lot easier for travelers to converse with the chatbot instead of just kind of pecking and searching," he said.
By the numbers: The tourism authority also tracks what queries the bot receives and uses that information for marketing, CEO Kerri Kapich told Axios.
Case in point: Searches for Christmas in San Diego spiked in July, which Kapich blames on the Hallmark Channel's Christmas in July series.
- "It's helping us understand people are really planning ahead, or they're asking about Fourth of July fireworks the day of," she said. "So it can help us develop content and actually give travelers what they need."