Policy-Compliant NDC Chatbot for Travel Agencies

Booking Smarter: A Policy-Compliant NDC Chatbot PoC for Modern Travel Agencies

Challenge

Booking policies are widely used by Travel Management Companies (TMCs), businesses, event organizers, and many other entities to ensure compliance with specific budgets and constraints.

Historically, these policies have served as guidelines for travel agents and professionals making bookings on behalf of travelers.

However, consumer behavior is shifting. Increasingly, travelers prefer greater personalization and involvement in their travel orchestrations, including the ability to independently research and select travel options.

Additionally, the development and popularity of new technological standards such as the NDC have led to dynamic flight data, significantly altering the traditional flight search processes. These changes have created a gap between user empowerment and policy enforcement.

PoC Description

Travel Agency Solutions has extended our NDC-enabled, LLM-powered chatbot tool to account for any booking policies or restrictions associated with specific traveler profiles.

The chatbot still offers a simple, conversational interface that connects users with NDC data and offers flight options that match the specifications or modifications provided in the chat.

In addition, the chatbot can recognize which user it's currently interacting with and see the booking policies listed for the profile. Taking them as filters, the LLM only returns flight options which are automatically compliant with the policies in place including the latest updates.

Although this chatbot now takes booking policies as the primary consideration for which flights to search and show, the users maintain their ability to refine and perfect their searches. As a result, neither convenience, flexibility, nor compliance is compromised in the process.

This means:

For users booking their own travel, this application provides as much flexibility as possible while ensuring that they remain within the boundaries of their policies.
For agents booking travel on behalf of others, this application simplifies the process of engaging with NDC data by automatically applying specific restrictions or guidelines to the results.

This PoC’s intuitive chat interface and its inherent consideration for booking policies enable users to engage with NDC data in a more meaningful, customizable way.

Examples of different profiles or ”levels” that the application can consider.

Examples of different policies that could be associated with a specific user. Note: These restrictions are only displayed for demonstration purposes.

Example of JSON data for a flight request, sorted by price.

Example of conversation flow and data capture.

Process Flow

User logs into the travel booking platform and is directed to the chatbot interface
Chatbot identifies the user’s profile and associated booking policies/restrictions
User submits flight requests to the chatbot
Requests are processed through a web application in the chat
The LLM generates automatic policy-compliant responses
Users can ask follow-up questions and further refine results, all within the same conversation

Business Benefits

The chatbot acts as a tech advisor, offering seamless flight offer guidance
Supports integration with specific and/or multiple aggregators, accommodating expanding offer options
Keeps an up-to-date record of what is currently supported within a company’s ecosystem
Recognizes the policies associated with the current user
Automatically accommodates various levels of policies and restrictions
Expedite the travel booking experience for agents booking on behalf of others through NDC
Provides the user/traveler with the greatest flexibility possible without compromising policies/restrictions
Offers an opportunity to extend booking policies associated with users to include specific accommodations, preferences, or other important factors

Technologies Used

LangChain

AWS Kendra

AWS ECS

AWS ECR

AWS Bedrock

Learn More

Want to see how DataArt’s Policy-Compliant Chatbot can simplify travel booking across your platform?

Contact our Travel Agency Solutions team to discuss the technology's full potential and the ways in which it can streamline your business operations, assist your agents, combine with other NDC technologies, and more.