Travel companies prepare for AI chatbots that can plan and book trips

In short: Travel companies are getting ready for AI chatbots that can research, plan, and book holidays on a customer’s behalf.

What's going on

Hotels, tour operators, and travel agencies are rushing to build their own online tools and loyalty programs. The goal is to stay relevant if more people start using “agentic” AI, meaning chatbots that can take actions for you, like a digital assistant that not only suggests options but also clicks the buttons to book.

A survey run by OnePoll for Skyscanner last year suggests this shift is already starting. Of about 22,000 people surveyed, 38 percent said they would use AI tools to research a destination. Another 33 percent said they would use AI to plan a holiday itinerary, meaning a day by day plan.

Accor, the French hotel group behind brands like Sofitel and Mercure, said travellers’ planning and booking habits are already changing. Accor is preparing for what it calls the “agentic step,” including investing in apps that could support booking and payments inside large language models (chatbots trained on huge amounts of text, like ChatGPT). Skyscanner has also added “conversational search,” so people can type requests like “cheap but sunny hiking holiday from London for a week in November” and get tailored suggestions.

What to watch

The biggest question is who “owns” the customer relationship when a chatbot becomes the main way people book travel. Some hotel groups hope AI agents will reduce reliance on big booking sites that charge fees. Others worry the chatbot may steer travelers toward options they have never heard of, which could weaken familiar brands and put pressure on middlemen like Booking.com and Expedia.

Source: Financial Times