How Travel Advisors Should Really Use AI

Love it or hate it, AI has arrived in full force. And as it proceeds to reshape the world as we know it, some industries are still assessing whether to adopt this new technology and if so, how best to do so and on what scale.

Travel advisors are among those who are navigating this turning point in history and assessing how best to move forward, actively gauging whether AI is a benefit or a drawback for an industry that has made its mark largely by delivering high touch, highly personalized service based on human knowledge, relationships and lived, human expertise. Does AI fit into this model? And if so, how and where?

To answer that question, TravelPulse gathered the opinions of numerous travel advisors, travel agency owners and AI industry experts. We asked each person to identify ways that AI can best be utilized by travel advisors and whether there are any drawbacks associated with its adoption. Here’s what they had to say.

Travel technology (Photo Credit: Tierney/Adobe Stock)

Efficiency tool

At Inspired Travel Group, a full-service corporate travel management company, AI is already changing the way travel advisors work. And the company’s CEO, Danielle Riddle, views that as a positive development when “it’s used for the right reasons.”  

“At Inspired, we view AI as a tool that helps us become more efficient behind the scenes, allowing our team to spend more time where it matters most; looking after people,” says Riddle.

One of the biggest advantages of AI in Riddle’s opinion is administrative efficiency. AI is excellent at helping draft client communications, summarizing destination research, organizing information, and assisting with marketing content. It can  also significantly reduce time spent on repetitive tasks, freeing advisors to focus on relationship building, problem-solving, and strategic trip design, she says.

“Another area where AI adds real value is research. It can quickly consolidate information about destinations, hotels, visa requirements, or local experiences, giving advisors a strong starting point," explains Riddle.

“That said, every recommendation still needs to be validated through firsthand knowledge, trusted supplier relationships, and professional judgment. AI can gather information, but it can’t replace lived experience,” she adds.

Ultimately, Riddle says, the biggest advantage of AI is efficiency. It allows advisors to automate lower value administrative work so they can dedicate more time to delivering exceptional service and building meaningful client relationships.

“At the end of the day, travel is still a people business. AI can help us work smarter, but it can’t replace the trust, relationships, and human judgment that define exceptional travel management,” she concludes.

Improved work life balance

For Stephanie Pickles, founder and president of PTN Travel, a Dallas-Fort Worth-based host agency in the Virtuoso luxury-only travel network, AI offers pros and cons. And so far, she doesn’t see its adoption as essential to the way the company does business.


It’s primary benefit, she says, assisting travel advisors, saving them time and improving work life balance. “ChatGPT can assist travel advisors in writing marketing emails more quickly to send travel inspiration to their clients when there's a flash promotion on fares, and sailings,” she begins.

ChatGPT can also help travel advisors locate hyper-specific requests for clients, such as finding the highest rated Indian restaurant within walking distance of a hotel or closest Michelin-starred restaurants for a celebratory dinner, Pickles continues.

And once you've trained ChatGPT to your personal tone and preferences, Pickles says, travel advisors can use it to quickly respond to inquiries regarding consultation scheduling, planning fees, and current promotions.

All of those benefits aside, Pickles says ChatGPT should be used with caution, as it “can ‘hallucinate’ or give completely inaccurate and made up responses.”

“So, we don't use it for directions, itinerary-building or any proper logistics-planning for travel, because we only want factual information for our clients' safety and comfort,” explains Pickles.

“Innacurate information can cause travelers to be lost, in a country with the wrong paperwork or at a hotel that is undergoing loud renovations,” Pickles continues. “A professional luxury travel advisor would have personally checked the accuracy of every single detail, down to calling the property personally to make sure there's no construction, sargassum buildup or other inconvenience to their client - ChatGPT could never do those things."

Operational assistant

As someone who has helped implement AI tools to upskill employees across institutions at the state and government level and in the hospitality sector, Marcus McGehee, of the AI Consulting Lab, offers yet another take on how travel advisors should really use AI.

He says advisors should think of it less as a replacement for their expertise and more as an operational assistant, research partner, and marketing support tool.

“The best use of AI is not to outsource the human relationship that makes a great advisor valuable, but to help advisors become more organized, more informed, and more consistent in how they serve clients,” McGehee explains.

The way McGehee sees it, AI can help travel advisors most effectively in three key areas: Research and trend monitoring; client management and personalization, and marketing and lead generation.

With regard to research, AI can be useful in helping advisors stay on top of industry updates without manually searching dozens of sources every day. 

For example, an advisor could set up an intelligent daily or weekly search that pulls in categorized information such as new resort openings, flight route updates, destination news, travel advisories, promotional offers, or emerging luxury travel trends.

“This can become even more valuable when AI is used to monitor public sentiment across places like Reddit, TripAdvisor, Google reviews, travel forums, and social media,” says McGehee.

For instance, an advisor could run a monthly search to identify whether certain resorts, cruise lines, excursions, or destinations are receiving a noticeable increase in positive or negative feedback. That gives advisors a broader view than relying only on their personal travels or direct client feedback.

As for client management and personalization, AI can help advisors better understand their client history and identify useful patterns. “For example, an advisor could ask AI to analyze past bookings and identify which clients tend to book beach resorts in the summer, which families return to the same destinations, or which clients may be good candidates for a luxury cruise, honeymoon package, or multigenerational trip,” says McGehee.

And finally, there’s marketing and lead generation, which AI can also assist with. “Many travel advisors operate like entrepreneurs or solo business owners, and AI can help them build stronger systems,” notes McGehee. “AI can support social media content planning, email newsletters, blog posts, lead outreach, itinerary descriptions, destination guides, and client education materials.”

In short, says McGehee, when used effectively AI can help travel advisors to become more proactive. Instead of relying only on their personal experience and the feedback they hear directly from clients, advisors can use AI to gather, summarize, and organize a much wider range of information. “That can make them even more valuable to clients because they are combining human expertise with broader, Yes, travel advisors can absolutely choose not to use AI. Advisors have built successful businesses for years without it, and using AI is ultimately a personal business decision.

Support with clear limitations

Like many others who TravelPulse connected with, Ritu Panesar, founder and president of Travelopod, a California-based travel company that’s been in business for more than two decades, sees some value in AI.

Advisors, she says, can use it “for the work that used to eat the first two hours of the morning,” says Panesar. “Pulling destination research, building a first-draft itinerary, comparing flight schedules across carriers, scanning hotel reviews. All of that is faster now. AI gives us back the hour.”

But Panesar adds this caveat: It’s up to the advisor to decide whether that hour of AI assistance actually improves the client’s trip.

“A client says they want two weeks in Southeast Asia with a mix of culture, food, and beaches,” Panesar explains. “AI can generate a reasonable starting framework in minutes, but the advisor has to turn that framework into a trip that understands how the family moves, what they value, where the pace will break down, and which choices will protect the experience once they are on the ground.”

The points Panesar makes are important ones. AI can never replace the human touch that’s so essential to the success of the travel advisor industry. It also cannot gather intelligence in the same real-world, nuanced way that humans do. Nor can it respond with a human touch in moments of crisis.

“The limitation is the work that requires reading the room. AI cannot hear the hesitation in a planning call when a family says they are fine with a fast pace and clearly are not,” says Panesar. “It cannot call a property manager at 10 p.m. to confirm the garden-view suite is still available during cherry blossom season when the booking system shows it sold out. It cannot rebook four family members across three cities when an airline strike hits 48 hours before departure.”

Is it essential that travel advisors adopt AI?

All of the experts who offered insights for this story shared varied opinions on this front. Many seem to agree that AI is essential to increased efficiency. And that advisors who fail to adopt and integrate AI for this use will fall behind those who do embrace it.

“I think they’ll find themselves at a competitive disadvantage over time,” says Riddle of advisors who fail to adopt AI. “The advisors who will thrive aren’t those who rely entirely on AI, nor those who reject it altogether. They’ll be the ones who use it to enhance efficiency while continuing to deliver the empathy, intuition, and personal service that no technology can replicate.”

Panesar offers a similar assessment of the path forward for the travel advisor industry with regard to AI, pointing out that while it’s adoption is important and helpful, its use must be integrated wisely.

“Advisors who treat AI as a substitute for judgment will lose the clients whose trips require precision behind the polished itinerary,” says Panesar. “The high-net-worth family booking a $30,000 multigenerational safari is paying for someone who knows where the trip is most likely to break, from the flight routing to the camp transfer to the pace of the days.”

AI can help build the shell of an itinerary, but the advisor still has to stress-test it.

If there’s one common thread throughout all of the opinions surrounding AI and its long term use by travel advisors, it was one offered by McGehee, who pointed out that AI is ultimately just one more tool.

“It should be adopted when it helps an advisor save time, improve service, strengthen client relationships, or grow the business,” McGehee said. “Travel advisors do not need to use every AI tool available, but they should at least understand what AI can do, so tat they can make an intentional decision about where it fits into their business.”

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