Pernik with a city tourism AI chatbot on the Umni platform

Umni has reached a new milestone in realizing the AI chatbot platform’s capabilities: an urban travel AI chatbot. The basic version of such a chatbot for a town in Bulgaria is already a reality and has been presented to the local public, and 3 new projects are under discussion!

4 years after the creation of the first city tourism AI chatbot in Bulgaria by the Umni team for the tourists of Plovdiv as the European Capital of Culture and after winning a global competition of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) with a smart chatbot for a destination, we are delighted to share that this vision frozen by the pandemic has received a new momentum for development and in an unexpected place – a town tourism AI chatbot for Pernik, the region to come!

Heartfelt thanks to the Center for Sustainable Community Development, International Youth Center – Pernik, and Graosoft Ltd. for trusting Umni and sharing the vision of an intelligent urban chatbot with the young people of the local community behind it: by locals by local! Special thanks to our partners at TravelMind for being together in this wonderful adventure and innovating together!

BGTourism.bg was first to report the news:

https://bgtourism.bg/pernik-breznik-radomir-turisticheski-chatbot

A city tourism AI chatbot as a digital tourist office in the visitors’ phone is part of a city or municipality’s smart tourism strategy and a step towards digital connectivity between the smart city and its citizens and visitors. It works 24/7, answers frequently asked questions, directs to further information, automates requests, collects useful customer experience statistics, and is accessible with 1 click or scan from anywhere online and offline.

For city visitors and tourists, the AI chatbot provides access to a variety of information about businesses, services, places, entertainment, and other useful information in real time and instantly. The chatbot enhances the city experience and interest in the city and helps discover unknown unplanned places, new attractions, and services. Due to the better connectivity with the destination, tourists have the opportunity for more freedom in decisions, to make spontaneous decisions during their stay, and therefore have a stronger and positive emotional charge, more memories, more sharing from the city and about the city.

For the municipality, the tourism AI chatbot becomes a smart communication hub that reflects local culture and promotes local businesses. The chatbot helps manage tourism, reduce costs, and optimize resources by digitizing information and its distribution at the municipal level. Due to its innovation and functionalities, it also helps attract new markets – young and active people, meets their information needs, and creates conditions for building loyal tourists – with more frequent visits for longer.

The tourism AI chatbot also gives a second life to places of interest that have lost their popularity and promote little-known ones through peer-to-peer visitor introduction and education and information control by a team representing the destination.

More about the concept can be read here:

https://umni.bg/en/blog/the-ai-chatbot-the-city-concierge-to-connect-places-with-people/