Trust makes all the difference

For IT pioneers like Bill Gates, the transition into the AI era signifies nothing less than the onset of one of the most turbulent phases in human history – an epochal upheaval for which, in the Microsoft founder’s view, humanity remains inadequately prepared. However, the travel industry cannot be accused of a lack of willingness to modernize and adapt: Artificial intelligence has now permeated every sector of tourism. The new technology is revolutionizing the way trips are planned, booked, and organized, changing consumer behavior, and demanding new management strategies within companies. More and more travelers are using AI as the starting point for their vacation planning, while tourism providers at all levels of the value chain are attempting to integrate the technology into their structures and workflows. More importantly, AI-driven, autonomous systems are increasingly acting as proxies for consumers and businesses, working together to seek optimal outcomes.

AI Recommendation Leads Nowhere

Yet despite the rapid technological advancements of recent years, neither consumers nor businesses are immune to failures and errors. In 2026, AI-generated information may still issue incorrect recommendations, trigger poor decisions, or lead travelers astray. For example, thousands of tourists in Tasmania, Australia, were recently directed to a remote hot spring recommended by AI that did not exist at all – a fact the affected travelers only learned from locals after they arrived.

Such disasters, however, do little to shake confidence in AI’s capabilities. For Wendy Olson Killion, CEO of the U.S. route planner Rome2Rio, the technology offers revolutionary opportunities to enable travelers to optimize their travel and route planning: “AI is an incredibly powerful tool that allows us to offer all kinds of services to become more efficient,” she emphasizes. “Thanks to AI, we can provide our customers with significantly more map data and real-time information, empowering them to tailor their trips to their individual preferences. Depending on their interests, they can use this to plan the most sustainable, the fastest, or the cheapest route.”

However, even at Rome2Rio, they don’t want to blindly trust the AI’s results. A 35-person team works around the clock for the U.S. company to verify the accuracy of the AI’s route recommendations and correct them if necessary. So far, this human oversight seems indispensable. Misinformation – such as in the case of the Tasmanian hot spring – must be avoided at all costs, as it not only damages the brand’s image but, in extreme cases, can also lead to consumer claims. “Trust is an essential factor. Without trust in the route to the destination, people won’t trust the destination itself,” Killion emphasises.

High-Quality Content at Risk

The problem is more far-reaching than it appears at first glance. Travel platforms that generate their content using generative AI require high-quality data and content backed by serious journalistic research in order to provide their target audiences with reliable information. At the same time, however, an AI-dominated internet economy carries the risk of crowding out high-quality, journalistically researched content. When AI platforms draw on traditional media sources for their content instead of linking to them, they divert traffic away from the sites of quality providers and thus jeopardize the business model that funds journalists and other content producers in their creation of high-quality content. In the final phase of this development, there is a risk that generative AI will rely solely on content created by AI itself, resulting in a largely artificial – and therefore error-prone – pool of information.

The unresolved tension between a supposedly all-knowing AI and the human need for trust and reliability is also evident at other levels of the tourism value chain – for example, when booking package tours or hotel rooms. Recent research findings offer interesting insights here. Even though many consumers now have experience with AI tools – and in a country like the U.S., 40 percent of all travelers have already used generative AI when booking their trips – trust in the technology does not appear to be boundless. According to a study by the market research firm Phocuswright, around 50 percent of all consumers, toward the end of their AI-assisted travel planning, first return to the website of the company recommended by the AI to gather more detailed information and browse – entirely without the influence of AI. This suggests that many travelers do not want to relinquish control over their travel planning – at least not entirely – to technology, but instead prefer a form of reassurance they choose for themselves.

Sales Must Redefine Its Role

Such behavioral patterns are of particular interest to traditional travel sales. How the division of labor between AI and human expert advice might look in the future is currently the subject of lively discussion within the industry: Where can AI reduce routine tasks and lighten the load on advisors? Where does the use of AI merely create more work? Where does human advice still provide the decisive impetus for a booking decision? And what happens to a company’s business model if AI agents not only provide information but also take over the entire booking process?

In the ideal AI world of software developers and IT visionaries, however, many of these questions have long since been settled. In this world, travelers no longer trust human experts but rather their personal AI avatar, with which they engage in constant dialogue via computer-generated language, so-called large language models. Based on this communication, the avatar generates extensive knowledge about the traveler, so that it not only knows their vacation preferences and dislikes but also collects data on health, family status, and sleep habits. Armed with this knowledge, the avatar can then communicate directly with a travel company’s AI and make autonomous booking decisions. Ideally, upon arrival at their destination, travelers will find not only a hotel bed tailored to their specific back condition but also a recommendation for a neighborhood restaurant that matches their dining preferences. In this way, AI enables new forms of hyper-personalization, from which many companies hope to achieve better customer service and greater customer loyalty. Whether such AI-orchestrated services will function smoothly in reality, however, is far from certain.

Travelers Don’t Want to Lose Control

Against this backdrop, the extent to which AI can identify and cater to preferences and needs more accurately than a human before a trip remains a difficult question to answer. “We must not lose sight of the customer’s perspective. Most consumers do not want to relinquish control over the key steps of a booking process. This is especially true when it comes time to use a credit card,” emphasizes Mathis Boldt, CEO of Berlin-based hotel content specialist GIATA.

But it is not just the human need for control that has so far limited the use of AI in tourism. While providers like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini are now capable of creating customized itineraries, discovering hidden gems off the beaten path, or conducting comprehensive price comparisons, it is often precisely these kinds of research tasks that many consumers do not want to delegate – preferring instead to tackle them on their own for their own enjoyment. Research also shows that planning a vacation in advance with friends or family members is widely viewed as a positive experience because it heightens the anticipation of the trip and strengthens the sense of community among travelers.

A divided market?

In any case, AI is not yet a technology that completely dominates the consumer market. Travelers who rely heavily on AI when planning their trips still represent a kind of vanguard: Millennials are significantly overrepresented in this segment, as are frequent flyers and people with higher incomes. Those in lower income brackets, older adults, or those who travel only occasionally are often hesitant to embrace the new technology.

A certain division in the market can also be observed on the provider side: While, for example, the major hotel chains now have tailored IT partnerships and are thus developing in-depth expertise in working with computer-generated language, smaller and owner-operated hotels are largely left to their own devices when it comes to these tasks. They often remain reliant on off-the-shelf software solutions. Yet many of these businesses are still unable to provide platforms like Booking or Expedia with sufficient competitive details. In a tourism market that is increasingly dominated by AI, these providers – just like many traditional travel agencies – face the challenge of further refining their profile and the value they offer to customers.

AI Track at the ITB Berlin Convention

In the AI Track at the ITB Berlin Convention 2026, leading figures from the industry discussed the opportunities, challenges and next steps in the development of AI. Watch all the sessions on YouTube now.