9 Apps or Tools that Can Help Travel Advisors Work Better and Faster

Artificial intelligence is not really there just yet for travel planning—a recent study found that 90% of AI travel itineraries are inaccurate, with a lot of those itineraries including attractions that are closed or “lack logical planning.”  
 
However, AI has definitely arrived in the world of workflow. Most advisors have already heard of ChatGPT, and seemingly every day a new tool comes around that promises to revolutionize your workday with this or that.  
 
After speaking with Brownell’s Kerry Dyer about tools to be more efficient earlier this year on MasterAdvisor, I’ve spent some time talking to advisors about the tools and testing some of them out myself. The full episode with Dyer is worth your watch, but if you want the skinny, here are some tools advisors can consider, most with some AI built-in, that can help you work better, faster, and more efficiently.  
 
1. Respondable
Respondable is an AI tool that promises to help you write so that you’ll be more likely to receive a response, or you’ll have an easier time striking the right tone when emailing your boss, a colleague, or a client. Respondable says that it has based its technology on data from “millions of messages.” Aside from the AI, it also allows users to schedule emails, track responses and clicks, and more.

It is available for both Outlook and Gmail (Gmail users can simply add it to their Chrome as an extension). It’s also available as a mobile app on both iOS and Android.

Pricing varies, but there is a free version that allows you to use it for 10 emails per month. The lowest-priced plan is $4.99 per month billed annually. The highest-priced plan is $49.99 per month billed annually, which includes several additional features including CRM integration, premium support, and more. 

2. Motion AI
Motion AI is essentially a virtual assistant built with AI technology that can help schedule appointments without manual planning, help you prioritize your tasks depending on importance, timeliness, and deadlines, and help plan a day based on a to-do list.

Motion already boasts over 1 million users, including entire teams that work through the program. Motion works through your web browser. It can be trialed for free—after a seven-day free trial it costs $19 per month for 12 months. 

3. TravelWits 
TravelWits is a GDS overlay for advisors who want a simpler, easier-to-understand interface when booking through a GDS. It already has partnerships with JP Morgan Chase and Virtuoso. I’ve never experienced it myself, but I have heard from several advisors that TravelWits has helped them significantly with their bookings. Advisors can get a demo by reaching out to the TravelWits team.

4. Droplr
Droplr is essentially a quasi-note-taking tool that can help you keep track of your workflow. It captures screenshots and records screens instantly, saves those images and recordings to the cloud, and then allows you to share them with your team or client. It is similar to Loom, another AI tool that advisors may be familiar with. 

Droplr offers a free three-day trial. After that, it offers plans starting from $6 per month. A team option allows up to 15 users for $7 per user per month. 

5. Fathom
I already know that many advisors use Otter—I can see the Otter bots regularly attend our MasterAdvisor Zoom episodes. Fathom is another tool similar to Otter that promises advisors that they’ll “never take notes again.”  

Fathom connects to your calendar to see when your meetings are. It then transcribes and summarizes meetings within 30 seconds of their ending and then automatically syncs those summaries and tasks them into your CRM. It also cuts clips from video meetings that you can share via Outlook, Gmail, Google Docs, Slack, and more. The company says that it saves you 20 minutes per meeting, which equals 1.5 weeks per year. 

6. Gamma 
If you are in the habit of creating presentations for a client or even for your team, Gamma is a tool you should consider. “Focus on content, not formatting,” is Gamma’s big pitch. It promises to help create a presentation, document, or webpage using an AI generator. It’s supposed to take the drag out of the process by removing formatting and making it easier to do things in one click when creating content. Gamma is free to sign uphttps://gamma.app/signup? 

7. Tres/TripSuite/Tern
CRMs are the lifeblood of an advisor’s business, and while most are already familiar with one or another, new CRMs are coming out that advisors might want to look at if they are interested in changing things up.

Tres, TripSuite, and Tern all fall into that category. All offer things advisors need, like secure access for taking sensitive data or credit card info, and dashboards for self-reporting. All are also mostly compatible with GDSs. 

8. Todoist (To-Do-ist)
At some point in my life, I became a to-do list person. It became part of my workflow to list daily tasks that need to get done—I found seeing it all on one sheet of paper, made it easier for me to plan my day in the morning and then prioritize what I needed to get done and when.

The issue is, when you work in travel, it is fairly common not to be working at your desk. It is also fairly easy to lose a single sheet of paper. 
Enter todoist, a task organizer that is essentially a digital to-do list. Apple has something similar built into the iPhone (Reminders), but Todoist is neat in that it allows you to add daily or monthly tasks that will automatically be added and add tasks out into the future. It is also easy to sort them, putting higher-priority ones on top and lower ones on the bottom. 

The app, which has thirty million downloads, is available for free on both Google Play and Apple’s App Store.