# How can tourism businesses use AI?

Date: 2025-05-12 · Author: Robert Scales · https://guidetoartificialintelligence.com/en/learn/tourism-businesses-use-ai/

**Answer:** A small tourism business can use AI to draft listings and descriptions in more than one language and to answer common visitor questions through a simple FAQ assistant built on its own fact sheet. The work that stays human is checking every hour, price and rule before it goes out, and keeping one up-to-date source of facts.

Most small tourism businesses run on a few people who do everything: the bookings, the website, the social posts, the answers to the same twenty questions every week. That is where AI helps most. A chat assistant such as ChatGPT can draft a listing in French and English, adapt it for different websites, and answer routine questions from a document you control. It does not replace knowing your place and your visitors. It saves typing.

The risk in tourism is specific: details change. Opening hours move with the seasons, prices go up, a trail closes after a storm. A model will write a wrong price in the same confident tone as a right one. So the method below has three parts: one fact sheet, AI drafts built from it, and a regular check.

## Start with one fact sheet

Before asking AI for anything, write a plain document with the facts a visitor needs. Keep it in simple text, one column, with short headings. OpenAI's help pages note that its file reader works best with simple single-column text and can struggle with multi-column PDFs and slide layouts, so a brochure is a poor source.

Here is an example for an imaginary canoe-rental and café business on a lake in the Petite-Nation area. All names, hours and prices are illustrative.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Lac Example Canoe & Café (fictional) |
| Season | Mid-May to mid-October |
| Hours | Every day, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; weekends only from September |
| Prices | Canoe, 2 hours: $40; full day: $75; lifejackets included |
| Rules | Return by 5 p.m.; no rentals in thunderstorms |
| Languages | French and English spoken |
| Last checked | 2025-05-10, by the owner |

The "Last checked" line matters. It tells you, and anyone helping you, how fresh each fact is.

## A bilingual listing in one prompt

*A Beginner's Guide to ChatGPT* recommends giving the model a role, your context and a clear output format. For a listing, that looks like this:

```prompt
You are a tourism copywriter who writes natural Québec French and clear English.

Using ONLY the fact sheet below, write:
1. A 120-word description in French for a regional tourism directory.
2. The same description adapted in English (not a word-for-word translation).
3. A 40-word version of each for a social media post.

Rules:
- Do not add any fact, price, hour or service that is not in the fact sheet.
- If a detail a visitor would expect is missing, list it at the end under "Missing".
- Friendly and plain; no superlatives such as "best" or "unforgettable".

Fact sheet:
[paste the fact sheet here]
```

The "Missing" list is the useful trick. Instead of inventing parking details or a dog policy, the model tells you what visitors might ask that you have not written down. Then a person who speaks both languages reads both versions, because a fluent-sounding sentence can still say something you never meant.

## A visitor FAQ assistant

On a paid ChatGPT plan you can build a custom GPT, a version of ChatGPT set up for one purpose. In the GPT editor, the Configure tab lets you write instructions, add conversation starters and attach knowledge files (up to 20). You upload your fact sheet and write instructions such as:

```prompt
You answer visitor questions for Lac Example Canoe & Café.
Answer in the language the visitor uses, French or English.
Use only the attached fact sheet. If the answer is not there, say you don't know
and give the phone number from the fact sheet.
Always mention the "Last checked" date when you give hours or prices.
```

Test it with real questions from your inbox before you share it: "Are you open on Thanksgiving Monday?", "Can I bring my dog?", "C'est combien pour la journée?" Note every answer that guesses, and tighten the instructions or add the missing fact.

Two cautions. OpenAI's help pages say content from knowledge files may appear in the GPT's answers, so never upload anything private, such as supplier prices or staff phone numbers. And treat the assistant as a first answer, not the final word on safety or bookings.

> **Try it:** Write a ten-line fact sheet for your business (or an imaginary one), then run the listing prompt above. Count how many items appear under "Missing" and decide which belong in your fact sheet.

## Other everyday uses

Once the fact sheet exists, the same pattern covers many small jobs: replies to reviews in the reviewer's language, a seasonal newsletter, a rainy-day suggestions sheet for guests, or a first draft of signage. Each time, paste the facts, say what you want, and ask the model to flag what it doesn't know.

## How do you keep information about opening hours and prices correct?

Keep one source of truth and make everything else follow it. The fact sheet is that source. When an hour or a price changes, change the fact sheet first, with a new "Last checked" date, and only then update listings and the assistant. Never fix a price directly in a listing and forget the sheet, or the next AI draft will bring the old one back.

Re-upload after every change. Knowledge files in a custom GPT are managed in the GPT editor, and OpenAI describes them as best for material that changes rarely. An assistant does not notice that you edited your website. Replacing the file is part of every update.

Set a monthly check, and an extra one at each season change. Ask the assistant the same five questions each time (hours today, price for a full day, what's included, the rules, how to reach you) and compare the answers with the sheet. Then search for your business on the directories and map listings where visitors find you, and correct anything out of date.

Finally, the book's rule applies here without exception: contact details, numbers and dates written by AI must be checked by a person before anyone sees them. A visitor who drives an hour to find a closed door will not blame the chatbot.

## Sources

- Creating a GPT: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8554397-creating-a-gpt
- Knowledge in GPTs: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8843948-knowledge-in-gpts
- A Beginner's Guide to ChatGPT: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZRRPXZW