More holidaymakers using AI to plan trips

More holidaymakers are turning to AI when planning or booking their trips, according to travel association ABTA.

The body found that 8% of travellers were using AI – up from 4% last year – with younger holidaymakers more likely to use the technology when planning their trips.

However, AI still lagged a long way behind more established methods – such as general internet searches and asking family and friends.

Overall, the number of people taking a holiday continued a recent trend of climbing back towards pre-pandemic levels, ABTA said.

The travel body described the increase in customers using AI as “both a challenge and an opportunity”.

ABTA chief executive Mark Tanzer said AI was “something travel businesses have been using behind the scenes for the last few years” and was growing in popularity for travellers.

There has been speculation about the size of the threat AI poses to high street and online travel agents – with AI booking agents now capable of taking actions on behalf of customers.

OpenAI, which operates ChatGPT, recently partnered with online platforms Booking.com and Expedia to allow travel planners to do more through the popular AI chatbot.

ABTA’s survey covered 2,000 people. While AI is growing in popularity, 48% of those surveyed used general internet searching when planning their trips, 41% asked friends and family, while 36% looked at travel websites and guidebooks.

At the moment, less than a fifth of respondents said they would be happy to hand over the planning or booking of their holiday to AI – something which ABTA said may reflect the relative infancy of the tech and the “quality and reliability” of information.

Holly Hyde, from London, and who has travelled to 78 countries, increasingly uses AI to help her plan her holidays.

“I started using it in the last year or so, purely because I always liked using a travel agent.

“But my friends who used to work in [the industry], no longer do. Rather than developing a relationship with a new agent, I started using ChatGPT.”

Having previously worked in luxury and corporate travel, she said using AI was an “easy start point”, and recently used it to give recommendations to a relative who was going on holiday with their boyfriend for the first time, and wanted to fly directly to somewhere with temperatures in the low-20s in early January.

While ChatGPT quickly produced a list of suitable destinations in Spain and North Africa – Ms Hyde said she would still use a travel agent for bigger trips.

“If I was going to Costa Rica, or central America, for security reasons – you need the destination knowledge from someone who knows somewhere inside out.”

Overall, the ABTA report suggested an increase in the percentage of people who have taken a holiday over the previous year – up to 87%, the highest total since the pandemic.

This accounted for holidays in the UK and abroad, which both saw an increase.

Spain remained the most popular travel destination abroad, being selected by just under a third of travellers, with France, Italy, the USA, and Greece rounding out the top five.

And despite concerns over global news events, ABTA found travel demand remained resilient.

More than nine out of 10 respondents said conflicts such as those in the Middle East and Ukraine, or the political turmoil in the United States, did not put them off travelling in general.

About two-thirds of respondents also said wildfires in the Mediterranean area would not make them think twice about holidaying there.