Seamless Group Trip Planning: Connecting Personal Inspirations to Unified Decisions

This study aims to conceptualise a digitally collaborative trip planning experience for travellers seeking personalised recommendations and assistance in group decision-making before and while travelling. The proposed outcome uses AI-generated preferences gathered from their selected social media posts to make personalised recommendation and an AI-chatbot to facilitate group trip planning. To achieve this objective, key users were defined as tech-savvy, Gen Z individuals who prefer group trips and their behaviour and preferences were studied through literature review, participatory research, and auto-ethnographic observations. The key issues identified for the defined users before and during their trip included finding personalised recommendations and decision-making in a group while being remotely connected. Based on the insights of this research one of the outcomes is an interactive prototype of the key features that are potential solutions for relevant recommendations with AI and an example case of AI chat-bot facilitation for ease of navigating the group planning process. This prototype includes the following key features: 1. Integration of saved social media posts to create a personalised itinerary, serving as a starting point. Furthermore, same data can serve as a resource for AI-chatbot to provide relevant suggestions; 2. An AI-chatbot that facilitates group discussion for encouraging diverse opinions, even participation and unbiased conflict resolutions; 3. Ability to modify itinerary by adding options and facilitating voting with a map view. Travel-related service providers can benefit from insights gained through this study, enabling them to better understand and engage with the users. Furthermore, the design process and interface design decisions can serve as a valuable reference for anyone in the field of user-centric application development which involves AI.