Eurowings Holidays, the tour operator brand of Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings, has gone live with a digital travel advisor called ‘Holly’, supported by artificial intelligence (AI). According to Eurowings, Holly is the first online travel advisor that not only provides travel ideas based on individual preferences within a very short time, but also makes it possible to book complete package holidays directly via the Eurowings Holidays website. “A first in German tourism,” says the company. The AI tool takes into account personal preferences in the background and compares them to billions of flight and hotel combinations. Interested customers can thus find tailor-made trips on the Eurowings Holidays website, which takes into account special requests such as food preferences, sports activities, excursion ideas or even physical limitations. The technology finds exactly the travel package that best suits the preferences entered. For example, Eurowings Holidays’ AI travel advisor also includes hotel reviews and immediately checks suitable adventure excursions or rental car offers for availability. “We know that many travellers find the search for the right holiday destination complex and time-consuming,” says Jens Bischof, CEO of Eurowings. “With the digital travel advisor from Eurowings Holidays, the often difficult road to the perfect holiday is shorter and radically simplified. AI machine learning recognizes patterns and personal preferences for the benefit of our customers. In this way, Eurowings Holidays increases the quality of the tourist offer and also makes it significantly more individual. We are pleased to be playing a pioneering role with this new generation of travel offers.” The AI travel advisor ‘Holly’ was developed by the Hamburg-based startup Honeepot, which guarantees that customer data is fully protected and is never passed on. Eurowings Holidays works closely with Karlheinz Kögel’s HLX Group for the offer. It has 35 years of experience in travel sales and is considered a pioneer in the field of dynamic packaging in Germany. “Thanks to AI, airlines and hotels can break new ground,” says Kögel, who speaks of a revolutionary development. Eurowings, through its fast-growing online tour operator Eurowings Holidays, sometimes already sells around 1,000 package holidays per day. The company has set itself the goal of making Eurowings Holidays one of the ten largest tour operator brands in Germany in the coming years, especially with the help of digital innovations. Photo: Karlheinz Kögel, CEO of HLX, and Jens Bischof, CEO of Eurowings (Photo: Eurowings).
