Travel Advisors Embrace A.I.
by Ross Kenneth Urken
No, the robots aren't taking your job. But they can make you better at it.
Even for a cohort as resilient as travel advisors, the rise of artificial intelligence inevitably triggers fears that the robots are taking over and coming for their jobs one bleep-bloop at a time. Advances in A.I. could leave 300 million jobs vulnerable to automation, according to a 2023 report from Goldman Sachs economists Joseph Briggs and Devesh Kodnan. What’s more, the economists’ analysis of the tasks involved in more than 900 jobs led them to conclude that about two-thirds of U.S. occupations are susceptible to A.I. automation.
Innovation, of course, creates new opportunities. Some 60% of workers today have occupations that didn’t exist in 1940, according to a study from economist David Autor. Naturally, some jobs also go obsolete from technological advances: bowling alley pinsetter, switchboard operator, town crier, and toll booth operator to name a few. But for others, like travel advisor, technology has a long history of enhancing the way they’re able to access information, communicate, and maximize their ability to perform.
With the advent of each invention, there’s been much Sturm und Drang from folks who fear the obsolescence of the travel advisor profession. A.I. feels a lot like another the-internet-killed-the-travel-advisor story. It didn’t, of course. Nor did the rise of OTAs. Ditto A.I. The democratization of information and technological utilities has never leveled the industry. If anything, the recent popularity of ChatGPT, with travelers going so far as to generate itineraries using the chatbot, has likely revealed the shortcomings of A.I. but also the ways travel advisors can employ A.I. to enhance their ability to execute for clients.
Travel advisors’ relationship to A.I. runs the gamut from absolute repulsion to warm acceptance. One thing is clear, though: the quickly adopted technology is sticking around. Some are approaching it with hesitant skepticism, others with open arms.
Gaining efficiencies by outsourcing certain tasks to A.I. in order to then focus on more nuanced elements of travel planning is the cornerstone of Virtuoso’s approach to A.I.
“Automate the predictable, so that you can humanize the exceptional,” said Matthew D. Upchurch, chairman and CEO of Virtuoso.
Sam Hilgendorf, chief information officer (CIO) at Fox World Travel in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is unequivocal in his support for supplementing the human touch with A.I.
“Let me be the first to say, ‘I welcome our new robot overlords,’” Hilgendorf said. “This change is coming whether we like it or not, so for me it’s really about embracing and learning how to best use it without getting too far over our skis while we do.”
Fox also has an internal mantra about A.I., Hilgendorft said: “A.I. will not replace travel advisors, but travel advisors who use A.I. will replace those who don’t.”
It’s a wave: ride it or get washed away.
Whatever each particular advisor’s relationship to generative A.I. may be, it’s crystal clear that artificial intelligence cannot replace actual intelligence earned from boots-on-the ground experience in a location or extensive client work that allows for empirically better advice and decisions. Add in empathetic understanding of a client’s needs when planning a trip and fleet-footed action plans when something goes awry, and the role of advisor seems secure. Some want to kick it old-school and stick to what’s familiar. Others want to gain efficiencies in their workflow through A.I. and enhance the quality of their services they’re providing.
The ability for travel advisors to adapt to challenges and integrate new technology is part and parcel of their survival capabilities. And though the speed at which advisors are adopting A.I. varies, it’s demonstrably true that A.I. is more asset than liability for the industry.
THE STATE OF PLAY: TRAVELERS USING A.I. DISCOVER ITS SHORTCOMINGS
Whether travel advisors like it or not, travelers are already employing A.I. to plan their trips. In fact, a study from market research consultancy Longwoods International revealed that a third of travelers admitted they’d use ChatGPT to plan their vacation.
Travelers now have the opportunity to have an all-the-more frictionless A.I. planning experience: in April 2023, Expedia unveiled a ChatGPT-powered travel planner in its app that recommends hotels, restaurants, and more based on conversations in the chat. There’s even an Expedia plugin for ChatGPT that facilitates direct bookings on the Expedia website according to itineraries discussed with the chatbot. That innovation could be construed as a double-whammy for travel advisors faced with the technology threats of yore (OTAs) and of late (A.I.). This sort of integration promises to catch on with other OTAs like Priceline and Booking.com.
According to a recent survey conducted by travel insurance company VisitorsCoverage, when asked if they will utilize A.I. in the future to plan an ideal trip, a resounding 59% answered “yes, it is the future.” But the A.I.-generated information is dangerously imperfect. The infamous rise of A.I.-written travel books during the widespread adoption of ChatGPT in 2023 revealed the shortcomings of A.I. in its current form. Much of the information proved false or faulty. With much of the data inputs limited after 2021, the guides actually recommended long-since closed restaurants and hotels. Plus, many of the guides extolled the virtues of mass-aggregated highlights that any traveler would have on his or her radar. And because of pooled information related to historical figures or buildings bearing their names sometimes nationwide, these error-prone books often contained incorrect information.
Of course, we live in a world beholden to the algorithm. The more we buy on Amazon, click on news articles, stream movies on Netflix, favorite on Instagram, and converse in general (Big Brother is always listening), the smarter technology becomes at recommending books, shows, gifts, and travel experiences. Iterative machine learning ingests our preferences and generates offerings that cater to our taste. The thought is that A.I. can be smarter about getting to know our tastes, but it still lacks the human touch and experience. It may have something of a brain, but it lacks a heart, one fueled with passion for discovering beautiful corners of the world, experiencing new cultures, and soaking up the pleasures of transformative travel.
The true transformation of A.I. in the travel industry may be in assisting travel advisors in doing their jobs more efficiently and more effectively as a way to supplement their vast experience and human intelligence.
HOW TOP A.I. TOOLS CAN TRANSFORM YOUR TRAVEL BUSINESS
ChatGPT : From emails to blog posts, social media posts and beyond, ChatGPT has its limitations but is far and away the first A.I. tool anyone should start with.
Midjourney : Stop searching for (or paying for) the “perfect photo” and create it with generative A.I. instead.
Grammarly : Once a simple grammar checker, this tool has exploded in popularity and features. Imagine an entire customer service team speaking in one, unified, professional voice across email, chat widgets, social media and more.
Semrush : This SEO tool has been reimagined with A.I. bells and whistles, giving single users the ability to do the same work of massive teams in a fraction of the time.
CapCut : The second-most downloaded app in the world, this tool doesn’t just let you use A.I. to edit videos. It will even create them for you.
HELPING ADVISORS DO THEIR JOB, ELIMINATE DRUDGERY, AND FOCUS ON CLIENTS
Advisors are getting wise to the benefits of A.I. enhancements and incorporating it into their own workflow. TobyAI, for one, helps travel advisors tackle a number of tasks, from itinerary creation to biography creation for the lead generator Agent Profiler. The A.I. tool can also help them with more mundane tasks like email correspondence and social media posts. It allows advisors to toggle back and forth between ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Bard depending on the task at hand and also gives them access to DALL-E 3, the image generating tool from ChatGPT.
William Lee, a travel agent and head of marketing at Chima Travel in Akron, Ohio, says his firm has embraced A.I. for many components of its business, with forays into Claude, Midjourney, Perplexity, Photoshop’s A.I. (Adobe Firefly), Notion A.I., and Fathom A.I. in addition training its own bots to help in various situations.
Chima Travel largely uses A.I. for assistance with creative work – putting together pamphlets, promoting itineraries on its website, punching up visuals for presentations. Midjourney, for example, is capable of creating customized realistic images for instances when the advisory doesn’t have internal images on file or when stock images prove insufficient. Perplexity allows Chima Travel to expedite research and incorporate sources into reports, and the team’s experimentation with Claude and ChatGPT – along with greatly anticipating OpenAI’s Sora – is part of a project to determine which might be best in terms of helping to generate informational blog posts.
For Lee of Chima Travel, A.I. does not replace the human touch but just removes some of the drudgery from his work life and makes other tasks more efficient.
“A.I. is a tool just like the internet is a tool,” Lee said. “We do not use A.I. to replace any of our skills but use it to replace tedious work such as organizing notes, creating itineraries, creating itinerary outlines, etc. It’s a similar experience to using the internet instead of reading a book. If I want to learn about a certain destination, the fastest way to do is that is to research on the internet and not order a dozen books and read through them.”
Lee said he’ll also feed ChatGPT info on the trip such as flights, hotels, activities, and dates, and the bot ingests it all to help create a full itinerary he can vet to then give to clients.
Brittany Betts, OTA Manager at FloridaPanhandle.com, says her team uses ChatGPT, Discord, Gemini, RivalFlowAI, and other products like RingCentral, WriterAccess, and LiveChat that has an A.I.-powered feature in order to boost productivity in just the right ways.
“It has also helped us pay more attention to our customer service and reply back in a timely manner,” she said. “When we answer the questions that consumers have more quickly, then that results in them getting their answers sooner, thus resulting in a timely booking.”
Upchurch of Virtuoso said his company has looked to employ A.I. first by thinking about how it might benefit the end consumer looking to book a trip.
“We are utilizing A.I. across various areas in the network, guided by a holistic approach,” he said. “Over the past two years, our board members and trusted specialists have conducted numerous workshops and training sessions to demystify A.I. and explore its applications, with a particular focus on enhancing the customer journey.”
Virtuoso has also partnered with A.I.-driven technology players, including Microsoft.
“Our vision for the utilization of A.I. is twofold: we aim to enhance process efficiency while also recognizing its profound potential to amplify human connection,” Upchurch said.
INCREASING THE QUALITY OF TRAVEL ADVISOR SERVICES THROUGH A.I.
Beyond the efficiencies gained, A.I. can also help travel advisors increase the quality of their work.
“A.I. can enhance customer relationship management by providing detailed insights into customer behaviors and preferences through analysis of CRM data,” Upchurch said. “It lets the level of personalization go much deeper, from storytelling within marketing and creating itineraries, to post-booking Q&A and reminders. The concept of the connected trip, allowing pertinent information to pass amongst everyone who touches the travel experience, is more seamless with A.I. It serves as a productivity tool for travel advisors and a personalization engine for operators on the ground, marrying human touch with advanced technology.”
Creating a viable itinerary is a necessity, but how it ultimately resonates with the traveler is the true test.
“Success, in our view, isn’t just measured by the logistics of the journey, but by the emotional state of the traveler before, during, and after their experience,” Upchurch said. “Our guiding philosophy, which has set us apart in the industry, revolves around enhancing human connection. And when travelers can no longer trust what may be A.I.-generated, genuine human relationships become even more crucial.”
A.I. can, of course, sketch out an itinerary for a trip, but the new technology might not ultimately serve the travelers and leave them with a positive experience. A travel advisor can gain efficiencies through A.I. but must bring that human touch to ensure travelers have a positive experience planning the trip and experiencing the journey.
“SUCCESS, IN OUR VIEW, ISN’T JUST MEASURED BY THE LOGISTICS OF THE JOURNEY, BUT BY THE EMOTIONAL STATE OF THE TRAVELER BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER THEIR EXPERIENCE. ... WHEN TRAVELERS CAN NO LONGER TRUST WHAT MAY BE A.I.-CENERATED, GENUINE HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS BECOME EVEN MORE CRUCIAL.”
— Matthew D, Upchurch, Chairman & CEO, Virtuoso
It’s also possible that A.I. will help planning within specialized travel niches that might require more sophisticated data analysis to get credible and actionable results. More than half of Virtuoso advisors believe A.I. will play a role in the future of sustainable tourism, according to a new Virtuoso survey.
Within a month of introducing A.I. on a small scale at Fox World Travel, 80% of vacation travel advisors there had adopted the A.I. assistant and were already employing it for research and in the drafting of emails. Some advisors used A.I. to simplify their messaging as they catered to specific clients.
The energy Fox associates spent in crafting messaging, whether to vendors, customers, or internal associates, had previously proved time consuming.
“Starting with a blank page is tough,” Hilgendorf of Fox said. “I used to spend an inordinate amount of time writing the first draft of a message, expelling all my creative energy to get it written. Once that first draft was done, I was often mentally exhausted enough to not really want to copy edit it. I’d send it to someone else, or just say, ‘Good enough!’ and hit send.”
Now the A.I. assistant helps Hilgendorf and his team write first drafts based on bullet points and key themes they provide. It then allows Fox associates to just focus on the editing, putting the message in their own words with finesse. Hilgendorf and his team now spend all of their creative energy in thinking about their audience, their specific needs, and how they can make the message more personal. With A.I., the messages take less time to execute and ultimately result in higher quality output that will better serve the clients.
Ivan Saprov, CEO and founder of Voyagu, a travel advisor platform with machine-learning technology that provides tools to automate search and workflow to increase sales and efficiency, said his platform allows travel advisors to search for travel products such as flights, create personalized travel itineraries, and generate proposals for travelers.
At Voyagu, his team uses ChatGPT to assist advisors in navigating through their customer base more effectively and to help increase their performance and business metrics by analyzing data regarding customer behaviors and agent interactions.
“When it comes to closing a deal with a customer, A.I. suggests effective strategies that have worked well in comparable scenarios and acts as a guide to pinpoint the optimal moment to address a customer’s query,” Saprov said. “This not only helps us increase our earnings and improve conversion rates, but also understand customers’ needs and concerns better, allowing us to address them more effectively and find optimal solutions, ultimately enhancing customer service.”
FIVE A.I. TOOLS TO SUPERCHARGE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY
Undetectable AI : Worried your A.I.-generated content will sound, well, like A.I.-generated content? Use this tool to take A.I. text and make it sound more human and bypass detection tools from Google or email platforms.
Clara : Stop going back-and-forth about calls, meetings or zooms. Instead, CC Clara on your emails, and it will go through each recipients calendar and find times for you to connect.
Alli : Potentially the most powerful SEO tool there is, Alli promises everything to keep your website running smoothly all with a couple of clicks on their dashboard.
Otter.ai : Imagine a world where every meeting comes complete with searchable transcripts and automatically generated action items.
Coral AI : Upload any document (from a blog post to a legal contract) and get it translated into layman’s terms, summarized and more.
A HEALTHY DOSE OF SKEPTICISM AND CAUTION
As travel advisors have already realized, they themselves are a necessary ingredient to planning a trip, even if A.I. is involved. Yes, ChatGPT can create itineraries. But they’re not vetted. An expert hasn’t necessarily pounded the pavement. A lot of the information is just scraped data that’s repurposed as suggestions.
Sahara Rose De Vore, the Milwaukee-based founder and CEO of the Travel Coach Network, a global community of travel coaches, many of whom are travel advisors, thinks “travel is far too personal” for A.I. to take on the entire planning.
“The problem that I see with A.I. in the travel industry right now is how surface-level its abilities are,” De Vore said. “The personalization of a trip hasn’t reached its fullest potential yet with A.I.”
Aggregated information and data-scraped itineraries aren’t necessarily going to provide a traveler with the best, personalized itinerary. It lacks a human touch.
In all likelihood, A.I. will help in simple bookings – getting from A to B and finding a hotel near a particular location. It’s possible for travelers or travel advisors alike to put in detailed prompts to create itineraries. But they’re largely unvetted. If used alone, it means travelers are rolling the dice.
Tom Abraham, the Bali-based founder of World Travel Index, an online travel advisor website, began experimenting with ChatGPT 3 in November 2021. After leaving his IT career in banking and insurance to travel the world and start a travel advisory, he found himself craving a place with reliable information collated en masse.
He encountered many moments where he wished to access all travel-related data and information at an aggregated level but often encountered conflicting data. One person’s experience can be a valuable data point, especially if that person is reliable and in-the-know. Of course, a travel advisor cannot be ubiquitous. Though he may have traveled to Bangkok, it’s possible he hasn’t been there in 10 years and is lacking up-to-the-minute 411. Pooling the data and feedback of thousands of travelers can be effective.
That said, like De Vore, Abraham found travel advisors that use A.I.-generated itineraries may find the information faulty and insufficient.
“ONE OF OUR LARGEST CONCERNS WITH THE PUBLIC ENVIRONMENTS IS ANYTHING YOU SHARE BECOMES PART OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE BASES. SENDING INFORMATION TO THE PUBLIC INSTANCES OF CHATGPT OR TO BARD IS LIKE SENDING AN EMAIL WITH REPLY-ALL TO THE ENTIRE WORLD.”
—Sam Hilgendorf, Chief Information Officer, Fox World Travel
“Most of them offer A.I.-based pre-built or even on-demand itineraries,” Abraham said. “From my travel experience, they need to understand more distances and have more time for certain activities. So, especially for day-to-day itineraries for longer trips, A.I. will wait to beat a personal travel advisor.”
And beyond the inadequacies of A.I. to plan trips, there are other elements that are giving advisors pause, such as data protection concerns.
Hilgendorf of Fox World Travel said his team started using its own A.I. personal assistant in September 2023 by taking Microsoft’s private integration of ChatGPT and building it into the advisory’s Azure environment before deploying it into Microsoft Teams.
Privacy considerations drove this specific approach to A.I. integration.
“We wanted a walled-off environment,” Hilgendorf said. “We knew Fox associates would find value from ChatGPT, Bard, and other generative A.I. solutions, but we wanted to keep any data we shared internal to Fox. One of our largest concerns with the public environments is anything you share becomes part of their knowledge bases. Sending information to the public instances of ChatGPT or to Bard is like sending an email with reply-all to the entire world.”
The inability for A.I. to bring the human touch to trip planning and also some of the data protection concerns around this new-fangled technology mean that travel advisors are all the more of the essence.
NOT A REPLACEMENT - TRAVEL ADVISORS AS RESILIENT SURVIVORS
At the dawn of the internet, fears mounted that it would kill the travel advisor. Reality proved quite the contrary: the internet, by increasing the information at advisors’ fingertips, has allowed them to do their jobs in a more efficient and informed capacity. Same goes for A.I.
When it comes to A.I., said Virtuoso’s Upchurch, travel advisors have nothing to fear.
“History has shown us that rather than replacing advisors, technological advancements like the internet and A.I. have the power to enhance their capabilities,” Upchurch said. “At the dawn of the internet, advisors who delivered real value through relationships built on trust thrived by leveraging it to become more efficient and reliable.”
Indeed, rather than fearing knowledgeable travelers with access to information, advisors embraced the opportunity to have more successful collaborations with them.
“This led to the important distinction we now make between the transactional travel agent and the trusted travel advisor, with the proactive use of technology being one of the key distinguishing factors,” Upchurch said.
In today’s world, where everyone can find an answer, Upchurch said, mastering the art of asking the right questions has also evolved into a valuable skill.
“While advisors may use A.I. as a tool, it’s important they also develop their ability to practice another form of A.I. – Appreciate Inquiry, which is a process of inquiry that fosters creativity and positive problem-solving,” Upchurch said. “This is a great example of how emerging technology can inspire growth in interpersonal relationships, beginning at client consultation.”
Ultimately, the threat of A.I. is greatly exaggerated.
“Adapting to change is nothing new for travel advisors, and they are renowned for their resilience as avid learners,” Upchurch said. “In fact, it could be considered their superpower. One of the best ways to reduce stress about the future is to simply accept you can’t predict it. By embracing uncertainty and being open to various possibilities, you’re free to focus on areas where you excel and deliver your best work.”
That’s exactly how advisors got through the advent of OTAs, the aftermath of 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and the Covid pandemic. Nimbly navigating a new set of circumstances is all part of survival.
Whereas A.I. might enhance the ways travel advisors do their jobs, Lee of Chima Travel doesn’t think consumers are finding it essential.
“I’ve explored consumer A.I. tools, and I don’t think it’s a major disruptor to the industry, yet,” he said. “Personally, we’ve seen more outreach for travel help than ever before. I think there’s so much information out there at this point, that people get information fatigue. Why spend hours researching and developing a plan for a trip when you can reach out to an expert to get it handled. Regardless of A.I. progress, I don’t think that will change.”
“PERSONALLY, WE’VE SEEN MORE OUTREACH FOR TRAVEL HELP THAN EVER BEFORE. I THINK THERE’S SO MUCH INFORMATION OUT THERE AT THIS POINT, THAT PEOPLE GET INFORMATION FATIGUE. WHY SPEND HOURS RESEARCHING AND DEVELOPING A PLAN FOR A TRIP WHEN YOU CAN REACH OUT TO AN EXPERT TO GET IT HANDLED. REGARDLESS OF A.I. PROGRESS, I DON’T THINK THAT WILL CHANGE.”
—William Lee, Travel Agent, Head of Marketing, Chima Travel
Saprov of Voyagu also doesn’t believe A.I. will take travel advisors’ jobs. On the contrary, it enhances their ability to knock it out of the park.
“Despite common beliefs, A.I. won’t take over the roles of travel advisors because travelers require a deep and thoughtful human touch,” he said. “Nonetheless, employing A.I. appropriately can bring significant advantages in enhancing operational efficiency and customer contentment.”
