Co-founder Tom Marchant explained to TTG Luxury that it is introducing what it calls The Feelings Engine on its website. This allows travellers to tell an AI-backed chat function how they are feeling in their own words and it will then suggest trips or travel experiences best matching this emotion.
The Feelings Engine is a key component of Black Tomato’s new Pursuit of Feeling programme, which includes 100 new experiences and five itineraries in different destinations based around the emotions of revitalisation, freedom, distraction, challenge and contentment.
Marchant said that Black Tomato remained “first and foremost a human business” and the new AI platform was designed to “give people the best experience by using great technology”.
The Feelings Engine, which has been developed over the past year, will be able to “have a conversation” with users and make suggestions about potential activities and itineraries, but clients can click on a button to talk to a member of staff at any point in the process.
Putting together detailed itineraries and bookings will also continue to be handled by Black Tomato’s human team.
“The notion of emotional fulfilment has always been part of Black Tomato’s DNA since we started 20 years ago,” added Marchant.
“We want to enhance the current process when people come on to the site – rather than just perusing itineraries, we want to create a deeper interaction. It’s a way to inspire people.”
Marchant said that visitors to the website can use The Feelings Engine to say how they want to feel when travelling by entering words or phrases such as “untethered” or “to feel wonder like I’ve never felt before”.
The engine, which uses the Claude AI platform, then searches through Black Tomato’s proprietary data built up over the past two decades to come up with travel suggestions to match the user’s emotions.
Marchant added that The Feelings Engine was designed so that it would “feel familiar” for people who have been using the new breed of AI platforms, such as Chat GPT.
“It will learn more about the person – we see it as a nice complementary service,” he said. “It’s also a new way of engaging for our travel experts. I don’t think AI will replace people in our part of the industry – our company just wants to embrace technology to enhance what we’re doing.”
Marchant said its staff would be able to see the online conversations, which would give them more insight into what the client is looking for when they take over the enquiries.
The AI project is being supplemented by Black Tomato’s new Pursuit of Feeling range of experiences. These include activities such as cold water swimming in Scotland’s Cairngorms to feel revitalised, or embracing distraction by exploring the vibrant streets of Shibuya in Tokyo.
The company has also recreated five “immersive journeys” based around five “emotional pillars”, including a trip to India for revitalisation, Chile (freedom), Mongolia (distraction), Greenland (challenge) and Greece (contentment).
“They are full itineraries that we’ve started from scratch which embody these different feelings,” added Marchant. “They are more fleshed out and we hope clients will think: ‘I want to do that’.”
Another development sees Black Tomato launch a regular Pursuit of Feeling podcast, which will feature a range of contributors talking about travel and emotions. These guests include Financial Times travel editor Tom Robbins and award-winning cocktail bartender Mr Lyan.
