Australian corporate travel agency Platinum Travel Group has
partnered with AI solutions provider Acai Travel to cut its agents' workload as
is plans aggressive growth over the next several years.
The Melbourne-based Platinum focuses on small and midsized
clients in Australia and aims to increase its revenue to 10 times its current
level by 2030, according to COO Ryan Potts. Tapping AI via Acai allows it to
"scale smartly" without making operations more complex, according to
the company.
The travel management company said use of Acai's AI agents
have increased agent response times by 50 percent and have helped cut as much
as 70 percent of the repetitive workload for agents.
"Our agents were instantly impressed by Acai’s ability
to interpret our private fares and fare rules with incredible precision," Platinum
managing director Sarah Szubanski said in a statement. "That’s a game
changer. It frees up our people to focus on relationships and problem solving,
not decoding PNRs or hunting for penalty conditions."
Platinum also is using Acai's Supervisor AI, which helps
route inquiries to agents based not only on agency but also to the agent best
suited to handled request, according to Potts.
Platinum joins Acai's client list that includes such TMCs as
World Travel Inc. and Globespan as well as online travel agencies such as
Kiwi.com. Acai head of sales Ron Glickman said the company will be targeting
"agencies of all types" as it expands that list.
"TMCs and OTAs each have their own structural
challenges, whether that’s [global distribution system] complexity or scale, but
the need for intelligent automation is universal," according to Glickman.