Artificial intelligence is poised to change how businesses and consumers interact in virtually every industry, including travel, which is ripe for disruption by AI.
When the first online trip planning sites emerged in the mid-1990s, they let consumers act as their own travel agents. Decades later, artificial intelligence tools are able to take over that role, and plan and book trips on behalf of travelers, saving them time and even money.
“It takes a lot of research and clicking around. It takes an average of 30 days between when you start planning a trip and when it’s fully finished,” Skylar Erickson, co-founder of Gondola AI, which helps consumers maximize their loyalty points, told CBS MoneyWatch. “You have 40 tabs open on your browser, so it takes a lot of work to get to that right answer.”
Also, because airfares and hotel room rates fluctuate constantly based on demand, shoppers could save a lot of time using a chatbot or other AI-powered tool to track and compare prices rather than manually refreshing their browsers.
“You log into a site, and you’re trying to find the right price based on what other airlines are charging — that’s the ultimate goal,” Ram Reddy, an AI expert and chief technology officer at Nagarro, a consulting firm, said. “AI tools that know you well can get you to the right place at the right time, when prices, which aren’t static, are changing every minute.”
Consumers booking trips are already seeing AI’s value: 41% of more than 2,000 consumers surveyed by Oliver Wyman, a management consulting firm, said they had recently used AI tools for travel inspiration or itinerary planning.
From inspiration to booking
There are a range of AI-powered apps and bots at consumers’ fingertips that can help plan a trip — from inception to booking. AI-powered bots can help travelers dream up trip ideas, turn visual inspiration into ready-to-go itineraries, and complete bookings and payments while maximizing the consumer’s own loyalty points and other rewards so that they save money. In other words, AI provides the services in which travel agents at brick-and-mortar travel agencies once specialized.
Ways AI can assist travel planning
Did you see a social media post of a trip you’d like to be on? Send it to Expedia to book your own version through a feature called Trip Matching, which can turn social media reels into bookable trip itineraries.
Don’t know what to plan for the kids while on a family vacation? ChatGPT can generate a list of free activities in any locale.
Not sure how many loyalty points or rewards you’ve accrued, or what they’re worth? A company called Gondola AI can figure that out, helping users maximize their loyalty points so their dollars take them further.
Trip planning and booking is prime territory for AI agents to test their skills, and hopefully, make the process easier for consumers, according to AI leaders.
“These days, it’s easier to identify where AI is not being used to help travelers. It is everywhere, from planning to booking,” Melanie Fish, head of global PR for Expedia Brands, told CBS MoneyWatch.
Jennifer Yellin, travel expert at Points Path, a browser extension that helps consumers compare flight deals, said the more she utilizes AI for trip planning, the better the technology gets to know her, and the more useful it becomes.
“The more you use it, it starts to recognize your patterns and preferences. It gets to know you as a traveler,” she said of a Gondola AI, one of her favorite new tools. “If you’ve been booking stays at Ritz Carltons, it won’t suggest a Marriott Residence Inn as a first option; it will suggest a stay of a similar caliber.”
“I used it dozens of times”
Other travel industry pros say they see more value in AI’s ability to help them navigate locales once they’ve arrived.
“ChatGPT totally revolutionized how we were able to get along in China — I used it to scan menus and translate them into English,” Scott Keyes, founder of flight deals site Going.com, told CBS MoneyWatch.tytrf “I used it dozens of times a day.”
As far as trip planning goes, Keyes said that while he’s generally an AI optimist, “the use case has not yet proven itself to me.”
Which tools are the most helpful? These are some popular trip planning tools. Here’s how they can help, and where they fall short.
AI travel planning tools
ChatGPT: The AI chatbot can suggest places to stay or things to do anywhere in the world. Tell it you’re visiting New York City around Christmastime with young children and you’re not sure what neighborhood to stay in. It can suggest parts of town and outline their pros and cons.
Google Flight Deals: Enter a destination and desired dates, or describe the type of trip you’d like to take, such as “beach escape,” or “Paris in the fall.” Let the AI-powered search engine — designed for travelers who want to save money — try to find you the best deal based on such parameters. The tool is not an AI agent though, and can’t book tickets for you.
Expedia Trip Matching: The AI tool lets you send a public Instagram travel reel, or video, to Expedia, which will create an itinerary based on the visual inspiration you provide. The reel must be publicly available on Instagram, and the AI tool can only suggest trips in the U.S. market.
Gondola AI: Give the tool access to your email, and it will cull your loyalty points and rewards from airlines, hotels and credit card companies to let you know what they are worth. It will compare prices in cash versus combinations of points, and can save you hundreds of dollars. It comes into play after you’ve decided where you want to go and stay. “We are about finding you money, earning you money and redeeming at the highest possible value,” Erickson said.
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