The German National Tourist Board (GNTB) is now promoting travel destination Germany through the digital voice assistant Alexa, in the UK and US.
The GNTB travel application - available regionally at the market-specific Amazon stores - is installed on Alexa as 'Germany Travel Tips'. For each of the 16 German states, the digital voice assistant provides three tips ? 48 in all - under the categories of nature, cultural experiences, active holidays and recreation.
The new Alexa ?Skill? is designed in such a way that it begins by asking the user for their travel preferences. The responses then lead intuitively from one level to the next, until Alexa announces different travel recommendations and tips for a holiday in Germany, each preceded by an audio file.
Petra Hedorfer, chief executive officer of the national tourism board, explained: "Experts from the US market research company Comscore predict that as early as 2020, 50% of searches will be via language assistance tools. With the Alexa project, we are implementing digital marketing tools as a future, innovative, information and bookings channel within destination management."
The target audience for the GNTB?s application are millennials and digital natives between 25 and 35 years old.
According to a study by Globalwebindex, currently, 17% of the global online community already uses a digital voice assistant, with 34% wishing to purchase such a device. This means that in the foreseeable future, more than half of consumers can be reached through voice-controlled application tools. This is even more significant for the younger 16-35 year-old target group, which accounts for two thirds of speech-driven applications.
