If you’ve ever typed “plan me a weeklong vacation in Rome” into an AI chatbot and watched a full itinerary — with hotels, restaurants and even booking links — appear in seconds, you’ve probably worried: Is this thing going to put me out of business?
That concern is not an overreaction. AI can spit out detailed, customized travel plans at lightning speed, blurring that line between what technology can do and what clients rely on advisors to do. As marketing technologist Kha Ly put it, “If you’re an order taker, a hobbyist, have no thought leadership and no value proposition, you’re almost asking to be replaced by AI.” Yikes!
On the flipside, AI isn’t a threat for savvy advisors, Ly said. It’s an accelerator that can make your marketing more consistent and effective, strengthen how you respond to demanding clients and help you deliver high-touch services no algorithm can replace — if you know how to use it thoughtfully.
Here’s a breakdown of what travel advisors need to know about AI and clever ways it can supercharge business.
AI 101: Tools and Prompting Techniques for Advisors
Before you can put AI to work in your business, you need to know which tools are worth your time and how to get effective results from them. According to Ly, the best AI tools for travel advisors include:
- ChatGPT: A solid, all-around chatbot for brainstorming, content creation and connecting to apps like Canva for even more functionality.
- Claude: “Basically ChatGPT with empathy,” Ly said, adding that it writes in a more human tone and is surprisingly good at creating polished PDFs for clients.
- Gemini: A “crazy beast” that connects to the entire Google ecosystem, including Gmail, Google Flights, Maps, Sheets and YouTube. It’s unbeatable for research and streamlining day-to-day operations, Ly said.
You can try them one at a time to see which tool fits your needs best, or experiment with all three. Either way, Ly recommended making an investment in a paid subscription to the AI products you want to incorporate into your business. The free versions are fine for basic tasks, but they put limits on functionality and usage, which severely hamstrings how much you can accomplish with them, Ly said.
No matter which AI tool you choose, it will only be as effective as the way you prompt it. Ly recommended a simple technique he called “RTF,” or role, task, format, when writing prompts.
- Step 1: Tell the AI who to be — maybe a social media director, an expert copywriter or a customer relations specialist.
- Step 2: Tell it what you want it to do. Maybe you need support drafting a 30-day content calendar, rewriting an email or analyzing a client complaint. The technology can adapt based on the task.
- Step 3: Tell the AI how you want the output delivered, like in a table, a PDF or bullet points.
And remember: “Nothing is better at writing a prompt than the AI you’re going to prompt,” Ly said. “Ask it what the prompt should be and it will tell you.”
Create High-Touch Collateral
“The No. 1 mistake I see advisors make is to ask the AI to act as an advisor,” Ly noted. Instead, continue relying on your own expertise to design dream trips, and use AI to enhance the experience you deliver around them.
“If you’re competing on an itinerary, you might be in trouble,” Ly said. “AI has more access to data than any person. Advisors should be competing on user experience, high-touch opportunities and have insights that the [client] cannot find on their own.”
This is where AI can be particularly helpful. Use it to generate thoughtful bonuses that make clients feel more supported before and during their journey.
“Can you imagine if you were getting ready to go to Europe for two weeks and you received a beautiful PDF from your travel advisor on what to pack for your pet to bring to the pet sitter?” Ly said.
And that’s just one of many examples from Ly on high-touch collateral you can create for clients with AI. You could also use it to send clients a PDF of must-know local phrases for a destination or a personalized photography guide on must-shoot spots in a city, based on the itinerary you designed. You could use an AI music tool like Suno to produce custom trip-reveal songs for families heading to Disney World, complete with their children’s names, he added.
These kinds of touches make the experience of working with you feel special and filled with those “surprise and delight” moments that wow clients.
Stand Out With Smarter Marketing
When you’re juggling client calls, vendor follow-ups and last-minute itinerary changes, marketing often slips to the bottom of the to-do list. But without fresh content, you risk missing out on new leads and building thought leadership in your niche.
That’s where AI can really come in handy. Rather than spending half a day creating your social media content or newsletters for the month (or worse: skipping those tasks altogether), let AI do it for you, Ly said. In seconds, it can map out a 30-day social media marketing calendar, brainstorm topic ideas or convert content you’ve already created (like blog posts) into other ready-to-post formats. When the plan and content are ready to go, it’s easier to stay consistent with your marketing strategy.
What’s more, AI can actually make your marketing more effective using the expertise you already have. Most advisors fall into the trap of posting generic updates and captions (like “Don’t forget to book your cruise excursion early”) that people scroll past without noticing — if it hits their feed at all. You can ask AI to reframe that into something much more engaging by prompting it to “write a scroll-stopping hook and caption for this idea,” Ly noted. It might suggest you caption the post with something like “I almost lost $200 not doing this one thing,” and then you explain what that means in your post.
“You create the value with your own knowledge and expertise, but use AI for the hooks and engagement text,” Ly added.
Strengthen Client Communication and Insights
Even the most experienced advisors can misread tone in an email. What feels professional to you might come across as cold. AI can be used as your client communications assistant, though, helping you get your message across more clearly and express yourself in a way that resonates with clients.
“You should always be asking AI to improve your emails. Even when I write something I think is fine, I’ll run it through AI and realize wow, the new version sounds way better,” Ly admitted.
Beyond polishing communication, AI can also help you determine what clients are really saying — especially if they’re upset about something. If a leader of a group trip complains about missing a perk on a cruise, for example, you might assume they’re disappointed about not getting the perk itself.
“But the truth is, that’s not the real reason they’re upset,” Ly said.
Ly explained that we’re a product of our own biases, which makes it tricky to understand what someone else is truly feeling. You can use AI to help you “get out of your own way” when addressing a customer complaint. Paste the client’s complaint into a chatbot and ask it to summarize the key grievances in bullet points.
“The AI might say that you’ve now made the other people in their group question their reputation,” Ly explained. That a-ha moment not only helps you respond more effectively in the moment but also trains you to spot underlying issues more quickly in the future, which can go a long way toward building trust and deepening long-term relationships.
AI’s itinerary-building capabilities might feel like a threat to your business, but that’s not where your true value lies. By offering a high-touch service filled with personal touches and creativity, you deliver something no machine can replicate — even if you use a chatbot to help you in the process. And advisors who embrace it sooner will be the ones still standing when clients demand more than what an AI tool could ever deliver on its own.
“AI is one of those things where you actually can’t stand on the sidelines and say, ‘Let me see how this is going to look,’” Ly said. “You can’t do that. You’re going to fall behind.”
Originally appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of The Compass magazine
Joni Sweet
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