The app tweebie supports tourists with information about their chosen destination to help them prepare before they arrive. It suggests individually tailored offers to visitors. For example, it shows restaurants they might like and whether reservations are required or leisure activities they might enjoy. If the app “notices” that guests are arriving on public transport, it suggests combination tickets for ski passes and public transport. To do so, the app integrates data from other providers, such as the Swiss railway company SBB, the Swiss hotel association hotelleriesuisse, tour and map app OutdoorActive, weather apps and digital ad marketer Guidle.
The tweebie app was developed by IT company ipeak Infosystems in Zermatt VS in collaboration with researchers from the Schools of Business and Information Technology at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The app is trained by means of artificial intelligence. It is fed behavior data from customers and will constantly improve on identifying the individual preferences of guests. “The more guests that use the system and the more data it receives, the quicker and more exact it will become in creating ever more accurate groups with increasingly precise configurations,” explained René Meier, head of the research team at the School of Information Technology in a University press release He also emphasized that data protection is extremely important: “Users have the option of sharing their data – or they can choose to not.”
So far, tweebie is available for tourist service providers in the destinations of Zermatt, Grindelwald BE, Ascona/Locarno TI and part of the Engadin, including Pontresina and St. Moritz. Other regions are reportedly being added on an ongoing basis.
