Welcome to another edition of Travel Hi-Five. I don’t know about you, but everywhere we turn these days there is talk about artificial intelligence (AI) and how it is impacting everything. Just because we may not be paying attention to it does not mean it doesn’t have an impact on some aspects of our own lives. Back in 2024 I wrote an article for The Compass on VAX about how to use AI in a travel business. I was curious to know how much AI has changed since then. AI has changed dramatically since we first started talking about it in the travel industry.
Back in 2024, much of the conversation focused on chatbots, automated customer service, personalized recommendations and using AI to create content. Those applications are still useful, but they are no longer the whole story. In 2026, travelers are increasingly using AI before they ever contact a travel company. Google reports that searches for an “AI travel assistant” or “AI concierge” have grown 350% over the past year, while searches related to AI flight bookings have surged. AI tools can now create detailed trip plans using live information about flights, hotels, maps, restaurants and attractions. At the same time, travelers are not necessarily ready to hand over control. Booking.com found in 2025 that 89% of consumers want to use AI in future travel planning, yet only 12% are comfortable with AI making decisions independently. That creates an important opportunity for travel businesses.
The goal is not to replace the travel professional with AI. Better yet is that the travel professional learns how best to use it while still being the primary point of value. The goal should be to use AI to make the travel professional better, faster and more valuable. Here are five ways to do it:
Turn AI Into Your Research Assistant
One of the most immediate opportunities is also one of the simplest: using AI to dramatically reduce the time your team spends researching. A travel advisor might spend hours comparing destinations, hotels, excursions, restaurants, transportation options and reviews. AI can help organize that information, identify possibilities, summarize research and create a first version of an itinerary. But there is an important distinction between research and expertise. AI can tell you a hotel has a pool, but an experienced advisor may know that the pool is shaded most of the afternoon and isn't ideal for a family with young children. AI can find 20 restaurants, but advisors either know or can confirm which three are worth recommending or are even still open! That human judgment becomes more valuable as AI makes information easier to obtain. The opportunity here is to embrace AI tools that accelerate research but make human review part of the process.
Build an AI-Powered Personal Concierge
The old model of personalization was based largely on past purchases. The new model can be much more conversational. Customers can describe what they want in natural language: “We have seven days, don't want to move hotels more than once, love food and history and one person in the group doesn't walk long distances.” AI can turn those preferences into potential itineraries and alternatives much faster than a traditional search.
This is already becoming the direction of mainstream travel technology. Google has introduced AI-powered trip planning that can combine flights, hotels, maps, restaurants and attractions into one customized plan.
For an independent travel business, the opportunity isn't necessarily to build the next Google. It is to create an AI assistant trained around your company's expertise, preferred suppliers, destinations and customer service philosophy. Some of that work is already being done by consortias and host agencies, so be sure to look at those tools first before creating your own. This step can make a small travel company feel much larger without sacrificing personal touch.
Automate the Work Customers Don't See
One of the most practical AI opportunities may actually be behind the scenes. Travel professionals spend enormous amounts of time researching, writing emails, comparing options, creating proposals, summarizing supplier information and preparing itineraries. Generative AI can dramatically reduce that administrative workload. An advisor could use AI to create a first-draft itinerary, turn supplier information into customer-friendly language, summarize destination research or personalize follow-up communications. Employees then review, improve and approve the work. This is a crucial lesson from the early years of generative AI: the goal isn't necessarily to replace a travel advisor. It's to give travel advisors leverage. The travel businesses that benefit most may be the ones that turn a good travel business owner, their team or employees into a significantly more productive one.
Prepare For the AI-Driven Customer
Here's a change that any travel business owner cannot afford to ignore: your customer is using AI, too. Travelers can now ask AI tools to research destinations, compare flights and hotels, develop itineraries and narrow down their choices before they ever visit a travel company's website. That changes the traditional customer journey. A traveler may no longer begin with a Google search such as "best hotels in Rome." They may ask an AI assistant to recommend three hotels that fit their budget, preferred neighborhood and travel style. Travel businesses therefore need to think about AI visibility as well as traditional search visibility. Is your business information accurate and easy for AI systems to understand? Are your products, services, reviews and expertise clearly represented online? What makes your business worthy of being recommended rather than simply being listed? In other words, the competition may increasingly be for the recommendation made by the AI, not just the click from a search engine.
Use AI To Create More Revenue, Not Just More Efficiency
This is perhaps the most important shift. A lot of businesses approach AI by asking, “How can we save time?” A better question is: “how can AI help us sell more?” AI can help identify customers who may be ready for a follow-up, suggest complementary experiences, personalize marketing messages, identify opportunities to reconnect with past customers and help advisors create proposals faster. Imagine a system that recognizes that a client who booked a European river cruise three years ago typically travels every two to three years. Instead of waiting for that customer to return, AI could flag the opportunity and help the advisor prepare a personalized outreach campaign. That is a very different use of AI. It turns AI from a cost-saving tool into a growth engine.
Since that article in 2024, what have we learned? Perhaps the biggest lesson is that AI isn't as reliable as its confidence sometimes suggests. Researchers are still finding significant problems with AI-generated travel plans. A 2026 research benchmark designed specifically to test complex AI travel planning found that even leading AI agents struggled to consistently produce plans that satisfied all the practical constraints of a real trip. That matters! A beautiful itinerary isn't necessarily a good itinerary. Flights need to exist. Hotels need to be available. Travel times need to work. Activities need to fit the schedule. Budgets need to add up. And, finally, the trip needs to make sense for the actual person traveling. This is precisely where experienced travel professionals can differentiate themselves. AI can generate possibilities. Humans provide judgment.
The Real Competitive Advantage? The future of AI in travel isn't about choosing between technology and people. It is about combining the two. AI can research faster, process more information, personalize communications, identify opportunities and automate repetitive work. Humans bring judgment, relationships, creativity, empathy and the ability to understand the things a customer doesn't always know how to explain.
That combination could be extraordinarily powerful. The travel companies that thrive in the next few years may not be the ones with the most sophisticated AI. In 2024, the question was “how can we use AI?” In 2026, the better question is “what could we accomplish if we work alongside AI?” That is where the real opportunity begins.
Here is to your success! - Coach Martin Mussey
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