zIA: a GenAI-powered local auntie assists tourists in Italy

TL;DR

This paper introduces zIA, a generative AI-powered chatbot designed to assist tourists in Italy by providing personalized, multilingual, and interactive travel guidance through text and voice, enhancing the tourism experience.

Contribution

It presents a novel AI chatbot that adopts the persona of a knowledgeable Italian auntie to deliver personalized travel assistance using generative AI technologies.

Findings

Prototype developed and under testing in Molise CTE project

Supports multiple languages and voice commands

Aims to improve tourist engagement and satisfaction

Abstract

The Tourism and Destination Management Organization (DMO) industry is rapidly evolving to adapt to new technologies and traveler expectations. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers an astonishing and innovative opportunity to enhance the tourism experience by providing personalized, interactive and engaging assistance. In this article, we propose a generative AI-based chatbot for tourism assistance. The chatbot leverages AI ability to generate realistic and creative texts, adopting the friendly persona of the well-known Italian all-knowledgeable aunties, to provide tourists with personalized information, tailored and dynamic pre, during and post recommendations and trip plans and personalized itineraries, using both text and voice commands, and supporting different languages to satisfy Italian and foreign tourists expectations. This work is under development in the Molise CTE research project, funded by the Italian Minister of the Economic Growth (MIMIT), with the aim to leverage the best emerging technologies available, such as Cloud and AI to produce state of the art solutions in the Smart City environment.