Skift Travel News Blog

Travel booking app Omio has announced the launch of its plugin for ChatGPT, which has been designed to enable users to discover the best way to travel in real-time, using data from Omio’s inventory of bookable tickets and the power of OpenAI’s technology.

According to a release from the platform, this is the first plugin of its kind by a ground transportation provider, allowing users to search and compare travel across trains, buses, flights and ferries.

“In the past two years, our tech team has developed the Omio API extensively, and we are thrilled to be able to apply it within the OpenAI world, bringing a further innovation in the travel technology sector. Users of ChatGPT now have access to Omio’s inventory of over 1000 transport providers, and can ask ChatGPT questions they would have historically asked a travel agent about their travel arrangements. We are proud to digitalise the industry,” said Tomas Vocetka, chief technology officer at Omio.

“Our vision as a company is to empower billions of people to travel anywhere at any time, and the launch of the Omio plugin for ChatGPT acts as a bold step in achieving this. We are giving new consumers globally the opportunity to search for, compare and book travel on their terms. Consumer-centric innovation is at the heart of all our decision-making, and we are excited for travellers to be able to ask ChatGPT for the fastest trip by train or for the cheapest way they can travel with their family in peak season, knowing that they will get quality results from the Omio platform,” Vocetka continued.

The Omio plugin is available in the ChatGPT plugin store now.

Multi-modal transportation platform Omio has raised $80 million, with plans to expand via new partnerships, acquisitions and further growth into the U.S. after Europe-wide expansion.

Omio launched in North America in 2020, but was then hit by the pandemic. However revenue has recovered to more than double pre-pandemic levels, and according to reports founder and CEO Naren Shaam said the U.S. market had “bounced back.”

The Berlin-based travel app, which integrates more than 1,000 transportation providers across trains, buses, ferries, cars, airport transfers as well as flights, may also be able to tap into increased demand for sustainable travel (it claims that one in four customers change their bookings from flights to trains), as well as travel’s holy grail of the connected trip.

Earlier this year Omio helped build a new international website for the UK’s London North Eastern Railway, to make train travel easier to book for overseas customers. The rail company counts 10 countries as its global market, including China, Japan, Spain, South Korea and Italy. The new search and booking engine lets customers in those countries purchase tickets in their own language and currency.

In March it added a partnership with CheckMyBus, a global intercity bus search engine, while it also has collaborations in place with Kayak, Huawei and Portugal’s state-owned railway company.

Omio’s Series E funding came from new investors Lazard Asset Management and Stack Capital Group. Existing investors NEA, Temasek and funds managed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management also contributed.

In 2020 Omio raised $100 million to fund the purchase of other travel companies, after buying Australia-based Rome2Rio in 2019.