The future of tourism - a virtual travel consultant

What you will learn in this article:

Artificial intelligence - models of the new generation

What is the Travelizi project?

Virtual travel consultant - the future of the tourism industry

In today's cluttered information environment, travelers are often forced to spend countless hours selecting airline tickets, hotels and transportation options for their next trip to ensure they have found the best possible option for them. In addition, expecting to receive a personalized service, even though they do not want to pay extra for such a service. Travelers prefer to use their usual applications for communication with the service provider, rather than installing new ones, so that the trip fits harmoniously into the existing rhythm of life. It is sometimes impossible to provide it in tourism following traditional approach.

Artificial intelligence - models of the new generation

Most industries are already successfully using artificial intelligence solutions both in customer service, improving efficiency, quality and accuracy, offering new services and providing completely new experiences. Unfortunately, tourism is far behind in this respect.

Today, artificial intelligence knows how to program independently, create images from a generally given description, find correlations, as well as replace a person in various situations. At the same time, various support robots have also developed, which, using NLP technology, can answer frequently asked questions and provide support to customers.

However, these virtual bots are in most cases very robust, with limited communication capabilities and manage very limited information. In order to create a product that meets the needs of today's travelers and uses the latest artificial intelligence technologies, we deeply researched this area, and as a result, we saw the frontier and possibilities that separated these outdated bot technologies from the new generation models.

What is the Travelizi project?

The goal of the Travelizi project is to provide travelers with a new level of positive experience in the process of choosing a trip, making it much more convenient, pleasant, or even fun and faster. In order to achieve this, Latvian tourism company Vanilla Travel together Riga Technical University

and UiT The Arctic University of Norway are working on the development of a smart travel assistant, which will be as close as possible to communication with an experienced and responsive agent, giving the opportunity to get information about travel options and to be inspired, as well as to book all the necessary services in the most convenient communication channel. In addition, the assistant will support the traveler in preparation for the trip, during the trip and even after the trip.

Virtual travel consultant - the future of the tourism industry

From a technical point of view, the virtual assistant will provide fast and convenient travel booking service with the help of unique algorithms, will communicate in languages spoken by almost half of the world's travelers, using the most popular communication applications. The assistant will know how to joke and be a good conversation partner on various topics, but at any moment will tell you everything you need about the travel destination, providing an unforgettable user experience. It will not only find, but also book the best flights, hotels and tours. Its operation will be ensured by a combination of several neurolinguistic and artificial intelligence models.

The Travelizi assistant will be fully automatic, accurate and fast, easy to use and will not require the installation of any new application. The assistant will remember what each of our travelers likes and create individual offers not only for him, but also for his family and friends.

The uniqueness of the Travelizi project technology is also emphasized by the integration of most advanced artificial intelligence models in the world at the moment, which, together with the other features of the virtual consultant, will allow Vanilla Travel to create a new, innovative and unprecedented product in the field of tourism. The new product will be exportable to global markets and can provide revolutionary innovation in the industry.

Currently, we have already successfully completed the first round of development, which allowed us to connect the main components and make sure that such a solution is technically possible and will really work. We are currently developing the main functionality, and we also plan to hand it over for testing to users who previously expressed their desire to participate in the tests.

Norwegian grant funding

The project is co-financed by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 within the framework of the small grant scheme "Development of green industry innovation and ICT products" of the program “Entrepreneurship Development, Innovation and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises” for the period 2007-2013.

The aim of the project is to develop travel booking system based on a unique artificial intelligence technology implemented in a multilingual automated virtual travel assistant, available on the most popular communication platforms and providing both full live communication and tourism services including a full booking process.

Agreement number: NP-2022/9 with identification number: NAGS1-IES-2021/25 in partnership with UiT The Arctic University of Norway. "Working together for a green, competitive and inclusive Europe".

https://www.norwaygrants.org 

Amount of grant: EUR 95 053.12

PROCSI kick-off 23 August

PROCSI- network supports and promotes students’ research work in manufacturing engineering and IT

A newly established network PROCSI – Promoting Cyber Security for Critical Infrastructures, funded by Nordplus Higher Education 2022 and led by UiT Narvik, will contribute to the education of a new generation of engineers in the Nordic and Baltic regions with high-level competence in digitalization through sharing expertise in cyber-physical systems, power engineering, and informational technology.

PROCSI consists of institutions having core competencies in educating professionals in the most rapidly developing areas: intelligent manufacturing and logistics, power engineering, and informational technology. The partners are

• ArcLog – Technological Competence Center for Arctic Logistics Operations, established at the Department of Industrial Engineering, UiT Narvik,
• Institute of Industrial Electronics and Electrical Engineering, and Department of Modelling and Simulation, Riga Technical University, Latvia,
• and Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, Finland.

All the students and academic staff interested in these topics are encouraged to attend our kick-off meeting conducted on the 23rd of August 2022 at Narvik Campus. The following guest lectures will be presented at 1 pm:

• Announcement of the 32nd FRUCT conference and cooperation opportunities by Sergey BALANDIN, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University, Finland
• Control Fundamentals for Critical Infrastructures by Nadezhda KUNICINA, PhD, Professor, Institute of Industrial Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Riga Technical University, Latvia
• Crowdsourcing in industrial research: PreScouter case by Ekaterina BALANDINA, PhD, PreScouter Inc., Finland/USA.

All those interested in developing their academic careers are invited to participate in the 32nd FRUCT conference, which will be held in Tampere, Finland, on November 9-11, 2022. The conference consists of lectures and presentations given by leading researchers and IT-industry experts as well as student works and progress reports of FRUCT research teams. The conference papers are published in the regular issues of FRUCT Proceedings ISSN 2305-7254 following principles and categories defined in the Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement.

The conference submission deadline is September 16, 2022, and the authors will receive a notification of acceptance by October 7, 2022. Students can participate with both papers and posters, where they can present the results of their master thesis. Participation in the conference is free of charge for students.

ArcLog workshop med fokus på 3 D metall printing 29.9.21

29.9.21 gjennomførte ArcLog en workshop med fokus på 3 D metall printing.

Deltagere var fra repr. fra Helgeland kunnskapspark, KUPA, ProBarens og Equinor. I tillegg deltok instituttleder Jan- Arne Pettersen, prof. Wei Deng Solvang og prosjektleder Bjørn Bremer på møtet.

På workshopen fikk vi en gjennomgang av status innenfor fagfeltet samt gode diskusjoner og refleksjoner for veien videre. ArcLog har startet planleggingen av et EVU-kurs innenfor 3 d metallprinting med nordnorske leverandørbedrifter og potensielle sluttbrukere som målgruppe. Første samling planlegges i januar 2022. Deltakerne støttet dette initiativet fullt ut og vil inviteres inn i planleggingen av innholdet i kurset.