Direct #hotel Bookings - Chatting about Chatbots - Ollerton

Hotel Direct Booking Summit presented chatbot insights by Tom Ollerton of We Are Social. 

 TripTease organized the event in London and definitely illuminated the near future of hotel bookings...and guest multilingual service conversations.

Video - Chatting about Chabots - is well worth the 18 minutes spent viewing.

While early days, Mobile - and subsequently bookings within Facebook Messenger/What's App/WeChat - is not a fad.  A number of major travel players and hotel companies have launched 'conversation bots' that engage + transact.

Chatbots should make bookings - faster, better or cheaper.

Examples include:

• Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotels - Edward
• Bookings.com Chat Tool for Hotel Bookings

Again early days and issues + payment ease are being worked out by industry leaders.

The full article from TripTease Chatting about Chatbots.

My take - 

• Hotels need to rethink websites as the center of the booking universe
• Mobile Facebook is used by 80% of the billions that access FB daily
• People already know how to text - no booking learning curve
• Rich, visual, engaging notifications are already a Facebook feature

Bottom line - social eco-system will be the booking environment for travellers. Get ready now.