This solution is aligned with feature 13. “Chatbot (text assistant)” and 14. “Virtual advisor (voice assistant)” of the Smart Tourism Destination Platform.

Virtual Assistants have become the ideal resource to provide citizens with an effective and completely autonomous omnichannel service in the form of ChatBots and/or VoiceBots. When applied correctly they offer citizens a permanently available channel of communication that provides citizens with public tourism services, thus achieving efficiencies in Citizen Service services, freeing them from monotonous and repetitive low-value tasks that can be easily resolved by a Virtual Assistant, allowing them to dedicate their time to high-value tasks, providing dedicated and specialist assistance.

In the tourism sector, examples of Virtual Assistants include, but are not limited to, as they are modular and customisable:

• Interactive tourist information.
• Planning of customised itineraries.
• Language and translation.
• Promotion of local events.
• Collection of comments and information.
• Booking and ticket management.
• Customisation of offers and discounts.
• Accessibility guide.
• Weather and transportation information.
• Customised food and drink recommendations.
• Information on local shops and crafts.

At Telefónica, we have extensive experience with both internal projects and customer-facing projects: we create Virtual Assistants understanding the needs of public services and those of citizens, focussing on the user experience, carefully choosing the technology and channels for their implementation. We work with any cognitive technology, channel of communication and integrate the Virtual Assistant with customer systems.