Some Travel Brokers Are Utilizing AI Instruments to Plan Journeys and Enhance Business

Decades in the past, journey brokers held the keys to the world, crafting and coordinating journeys for the on a regular basis traveler. Then got here Expedia, Google, and different on-line reserving behemoths that shifted management on to customers, forcing brokers to adapt.

Now, one other disruption has arrived: synthetic intelligence. And whereas its capability to plan journey could have some brokers feeling fearful as soon as extra, a brand new wave of journey advisors see AI not as a menace, however a device. And they’re leaning in.

Booking journey with AI

Athena Livadas owns Páme Travel, which makes a speciality of reserving five-star luxurious journey. She makes use of AI day by day to give you high-level ideas on routes or locations, write emails quicker, and drive her enterprise.

“Most travel advisors don’t see the need, or even get offended, when AI is brought up in the context of travel planning. But I couldn’t disagree more,” she informed Business Insider. “It’s not replacing us. It’s a tool that gives advisors super powers to deliver even more value.”

And in line with her metrics, it is working.

“When I look at a six-month period before and after I started using AI, my business has grown about 40%,” she stated. “Of course there are other factors involved, but the time AI saves me has definitely been a contributing reason. It has freed me up to take on more clients and focus on marketing and outreach efforts that actually drive business results.”

While there is not any information but on industry-wide adoption of AI instruments, it is clear Livadas is not the one one getting a lift from the expertise. Fora, a digital journey company with hundreds of advisors world wide, integrates AI internally in its personal proprietary platforms the place most advisors use it recurrently.

“Fora began rolling out AI-powered tools in the fall of 2023,” stated Jake Peters, the corporate’s cofounder and chief product and expertise officer. “These tools are integrated directly into the advisor workflow, whether it’s drafting proposals, building itineraries, or creating marketing content.”

One device, for instance, helps format textual content to be simpler to learn and extra client-friendly. “This feature is used 70% of the time when we are showing rates in our booking platform,” Peters stated.

Another is a chatbot known as Sidekick, which Fora has educated on all of its proprietary data, together with trainings, assist middle articles, and lodge and vacation spot data. “It’s used by 25% of advisors each month, and 35% of advisors who are new to Fora,” Peters added.

Rita Carton, an advisor with Fora, estimates that AI — together with Fora’s inside instruments and strategic use of ChatGPT for analysis — reduces her common journey planning time by 50%, cuts her shopper response time in half, and has elevated bookings 3 times in comparison with final yr. “A year ago, I could only manage two to three trips at a time and maybe five a quarter,” she stated. “In Q1 of this year, I successfully handled nine simultaneous trips, tripling my capacity without compromising service quality.”

AI could also be useful, however it could’t do all of it

Whether or not different brokers agree on the necessity to embrace AI, it is absolutely influencing how customers plan journey. A Deloitte survey performed from October 2023 to October 2024 discovered that the share of respondents who used generative AI for trip planning doubled from 8% to 16%.

“I feel like we’re at a similar age with AI that we were when the internet started to boom,” Livadas stated. “You either adapt and learn how to use it to better your outputs for clients, or you’ll be left behind.”

That stated, Livadas would not assume AI goes to exchange journey brokers anytime quickly. She warned that vacationers ought to anticipate to get frequent, generic journey recommendation from AI somewhat than the off-the-beaten-path, hidden gems that journey brokers might help uncover.

“For example, if you’re planning a trip to Japan, it’ll probably spit out the usual Tokyo to Kyoto to Osaka route with big chain-brand hotels,” she stated. “But if I were building the itinerary and I knew the client loved surfing, I would include Kamakura, a small fishing village with a mellow longboard wave that’s perfect in summer.”

These examples, she stated, are precisely the form of tailor-made touches AI routinely overlooks that journey advisors weave into itineraries day-after-day.

This disconnect is straight aligned with the one main factor AI cannot replicate. “The travel agency is all about relationships,” Carton stated. “We go directly to the hotel after we book to get the manager, and I cannot tell you how many clients have told me they got upgraded or had surprises in the room as a result. You can’t do that yourself.”

Indeed, personalised in-room perks, free upgrades, and moments meant to please are hallmarks of the journey agent’s contact.

“A lot of the value we bring is relationship-driven, and that will never go away,” Livadas stated. “I personally know general managers of five-star luxury properties all over the world that will welcome my guests upon arrival with a personalized gift from me. How can a bot do that?”

Correction: August 19, 2025 — An earlier model of this story misstated the variety of advisors who work for Fora. There are hundreds, not tons of.