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Announcement posted by Cheapflights 15 Jun 2016

Cheapflights brings smart flight search to 800 million Facebook users worldwide

Cheapflights, the global flight search and travel deals search engine, is today launching Cheapflights Chat, an interactive bot utilising Facebook’s new Chat SDK. The proprietary technology will enable the social network’s massive global community to use its popular Messenger platform to search for flights, and then complete the booking on the Cheapflights website.

Launching initially in Beta, the core flight and, for the first time, integrated hotel search functionality will be joined by a weather API, currency exchange and emoji search by the end of June.

 Cheapflights has combined a whole suite of APIs with the new Facebook Messenger API and their clever AI for parsing natural language. This way Cheapflights Chat can understand the users' intention even when they send a longer message like “Get me a cheap flight to Paris leaving next week returning 5th of August”. Once the message is split and keywords labeled, requests are made to different APIs to gather the required data: the Momondo Group in-house search API for flights; that of its hotel search partner for the best accommodation deals and availability data; Forecast.io’s API to see where’s hot at the moment; and Google’s Geocoding API to accurately place any location on the map and find the closest airports – all in a matter of seconds.

 As well as speed, the technology has been uniquely curated to offer a human response, which embraces the Cheapflights brand personality. Whether users are a fan of ‘dropping the f-bomb’ (or worse) or a fan of a ‘winter-is-coming--sword-fighting-like’ series, the bot has an answer for them. If they’re a fan of another flight search competitor, well, then not so much. 

 Click here to view a full demonstration of Cheapflights Chat by an entirely fictitious gentleman called John Snow.

 To talk to Cheapflights Chat, users simply open a Messenger chat to Cheapflights and start a conversation. They are then prompted to say where they'd like to fly and they’ll be shown the cheapest average flights available from 1,000s of airlines, OTAs and travel partners worldwide.

·         Users can search for the average cheapest returning flights in the near future, or search one-way or return flights for specific dates, directly in Messenger.

·         There’s also an “Inspire Me!” function for users who are just browsing for travel ideas, which shows average cheapest return flight prices to great destinations the user may not have considered.

·         Once a flight search is completed, users can then search for a hotel, with the results covering top hotels within their stated budget.

 Messenger was the fastest growing mobile app of 2015, according to Nielsen, and the second most popular iOS app behind Facebook itself. At the F8 Developer Conference in San Francisco in April, Facebook released a range of tools for developers to build bots inside Facebook Messenger with a range of new functions to help businesses interact with their customers, kick-starting what has been called ‘The Great Bot Rush’.

Commenting on the launch of the product, Nathan Graham, Regional Sales Manager ANZ at Cheapflights, said: “Sixty three per cent of our traffic now comes from mobile, and fifty four per cent of our revenue. It’s a big growth priority for us, so we should absolutely be jumping on any new opportunities that present themselves to engage with our users through that channel.

 “Unlike others, our bot is specifically designed with both the Messenger platform and users of it – and their needs – in mind. They can talk to us in the same way they'd talk to friends in Messenger, and will receive ‘human’ replies. For example, as well as straightforward flight search, they will soon be able to ask Cheapflights Chat questions about travel like 'Where's hot right now?' and it will suggest some flights to a destination where the weather is warm. Or 'What is the currency in Thailand?', 'What's £5.50 in Euros?' and they’ll receive an accurate conversion in reply. They’ll even be able to use emoji, just like they might do when in Messenger talking to friends.

“We’ve embraced this as a chance to be among the first to utilise a compelling new technology and engage with our consumers in an environment where they’re comfortable, and in a human way that actually brings chat to flight search. We’re taking another step towards frictionless dialogue with our users, and we’re looking forward to seeing how we can further develop this way of interacting with them in the months ahead.”

 Cheapflights has worked with Copenhagen-based digital agency UncleGrey in the development of the technology, utilising the Momondo Group flights API.

 ENDS

MEDIA CONTACT

Edwina Brook / History Will Be Kind / edwina.brook@historywillbekind.com.au / 0422 292 878

CHEAPFLIGHTS – www.cheapflights.com.au

Founded in 1996, Cheapflights is a leading global flight comparison and deals publishing platform dedicated to taking the complexity out of finding the best value flights through the application of innovative, intuitive technologies: Smart search. Made simple. It is now a market leader in the UK, US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand generating over AU $4 billion (£2 billion) in global downstream revenue for its partners as it expands in to numerous other territories. Over 120 million users visit its websites and apps each year, receiving more than two billion search results a month from across 900,000 routes. The 10 million strong opt-in subscribers to the Cheapflights newsletter received over 1.25 billion targeted emails during 2015, offering the best deals from over 120 travel businesses – for whom it has driven more than AU $80 million (£40 million) in revenue this year. Together, the Cheapflights platforms generate enough bookings for its partners to fill a Boeing 747 every five minutes.

  

In 2011, Cheapflights became part of the privately-owned online travel search and inspiration network, Momondo Group.

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