AI on track: How Journey Beyond is enhancing productivity and driving innovation in experiential tourism

Australia’s largest experiential tourism business, Journey Beyond, is renowned for its immersive travel experiences. With 16 brands under its umbrella, including iconic multi-day rail adventures The Ghan and the Indian Pacific, the company has a strong global presence.

Owning and operating an array of assets – trains, boats, planes, lodges and more – Journey Beyond employs roughly 1,600 people during peak seasons. The organisation has seen remarkable growth, expanding its portfolio of iconic Australian experiences within a few years. However, like many companies in the travel industry, it faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, Journey Beyond has bounced back stronger than ever, surpassing its pre-COVID performance. Madhumita Mazumdar, Executive General Manager of Technology at Journey Beyond, attributes part of this resurgence to the company’s willingness to innovate, particularly through technologies like AI.

“We pride ourselves on being very forward-thinking at Journey Beyond,” Mazumdar says.

Embarking on an AI journey

Journey Beyond began turning its attention to AI in mid-2023, driven by the widespread interest in generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Recognising that many employees were already using these tools to boost efficiency, the company faced a challenge: balancing the benefits of the technologies with the need to protect sensitive data.

“There’s a saying in the technology industry that if you’re not paying for a product, you are the product,” says Mazumdar.

This realisation prompted Journey Beyond to take a more responsible, comprehensive approach. The company embarked on a journey to identify AI opportunities, conducting extensive market research and engaging Microsoft partner Agile Insights. Journey Beyond also established an AI strategy and a steering committee that includes an external, independent member to ensure AI is adopted responsibly and safely.

With a clear roadmap and vision in place, Journey Beyond began experimenting with AI technologies, leading to the development of two prototypes that were greenlit in late 2023.

The company’s collaboration with Microsoft and Agile Insights has been crucial to its AI journey. Backed by Microsoft’s Azure Innovate offering, Agile Insights helped Journey Beyond explore AI technologies and build prototypes. Subsequently, significant internal development efforts were undertaken by Journey Beyond’s technical teams to make the solutions production-ready.

“We deeply appreciate Agile Insight’s partnership and expert guidance in the initial development of our first AI prototypes,” says Mazumdar. “Their expertise, collaboration and dedication have been crucial in advancing our technological initiatives in these new frontiers.”

Transforming customer interactions with a chatbot

One of Journey Beyond’s AI prototypes was a chatbot, developed using several Azure AI services, including Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI Search, with Azure CosmosDB used for back-end infrastructure. The chatbot leverages OpenAI’s GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 large language models and was trained on Journey Beyond’s data before being deployed in a secure Azure environment.

“Because we deal with confidential data, the Azure data security ecosystem provides an added layer of security and encryption to ensure data remains under our control,” adds Mazumdar.

The chatbot, broadly referred to as ChatJB, is designed to assist call centre agents by providing quick access to the vast amount of information available across Journey Beyond’s 15 brands. Agents previously had to search through multiple sources for critical information – like booking rates – during customer interactions. The chatbot simplifies this process, making it more efficient and allowing agents to focus on delivering better service.

“The chatbot is especially helpful in handling difficult customers or challenging situations,” says Mazumdar. “When the unexpected happens, like bad weather during a dream vacation, it can be hard to find the right words to respond. The chatbot helps our team quickly craft warm, considerate replies based on information they have provided about the situation.”

Currently, around 140 employees use the chatbot across different business areas. Journey Beyond has also developed specialised versions of the chatbot for specific operations.

For instance, ChatMSD supports the Melbourne Skydeck, a popular attraction where customers often ask about weather and visibility. Journey Beyond has integrated real-time weather and visibility data into the chatbot through API integrations, allowing agents to provide up-to-date information to customers.

The company has also released HRbot to help its human resources (HR) team cope with a large number of emails and requests from staff members. The chatbot helps reduce the amount of time HR employees spend searching for answers and their likelihood of disseminating inaccurate information.

Streamlining customer feedback using automation

In addition to the chatbot, Journey Beyond has implemented Microsoft’s Azure AI Document Intelligence to automate document processing. The solution is particularly valuable for collecting customer feedback, especially from older customers who still prefer paper forms.

Previously, the company relied on outdated optical character recognition technology to scan feedback forms, which required employees to spend up to 16 hours a week manually inputting data.

Through the deployment of Azure AI Document Intelligence, complemented by substantial internal development efforts, Journey Beyond has significantly streamlined this process. The AI solution reads handwriting accurately and is integrated with other Microsoft tools in the company’s technology stack, such as Power Automate and Power BI. This allows feedback to be automatically processed, analysed and visualised, enabling the company to gain valuable insights from customer comments much more efficiently.

Zoning in on data-driven insights and algorithm enhancements

Looking ahead, Journey Beyond plans to continue expanding its AI capabilities. The company’s focus is shifting from chatbot development to leveraging AI for data-driven insights. It is preparing to trial Microsoft Fabric, which Mazumdar believes will help unlock more value from its data.

“We also want to significantly enhance our algorithms by incorporating more advanced techniques, calling additional APIs and gathering a lot more information,” she adds.

As Journey Beyond’s AI strategy evolves, the organisation also aims to explore opportunities for automating business processes. Mazumdar is particularly excited about using Azure AI Document Intelligence to simplify other manual processes and increase efficiency.

The company’s AI journey is far from over, and as it continues to innovate, it’s clear that AI will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of experiential tourism. Fuelled by the exceptional technical skills and capabilities of its internal team, Journey Beyond is primed to unleash these innovations and transform its operations.