112 - The industrial revolution of Travel Agents
Is AI going to take your travel agent job? Or augment it into a mega industry? The ultimate luxury research. AI search and discovery. Anthropomorphizing AI.
Hello,
Still a lot of AI news and it is really exciting. Apple’s redesign caused a whole bunch of reactions. Honestly I think it is stunning, technically it boggles the mind to have this level of detail in an OS animation (I hope it doesn’t kill my battery). I’ll wait for the official version though.
Best, Martin
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Understanding luxury
Luxury is such a subjective concept. This report by Frog tries to quantify it and analyse it, it is worth the download and it is pleasing to read. Travel and Hospitality is the largest category in luxury with 20% of luxury consumers’ spend. Some say the key to luxury is scarcity (well hotels are a perfect vehicle for that). I think comfort is still a step above that. Anything that can make life more comfortable is luxury. Great hotels have figured out that good technology is how they can create the magic of luxury.
NEW LINES OF LUXURY + SUMMARY
Sternlicht compares Hotels to DTC Brands
The talk of hotels as small boutique brands and that the end of hotel chains has been around since the internet. I remember writing about it 11 years ago or more. In theory the internet made brands obsolete. In reality they’ve navigated smartly and added value to the market. The idea that Direct to Consumer (DTC) brands of the internet such as Allbirds was a success is a romantic one. The DTC model turned out to not be as profitable as a distributed brand model. Acquisition costs of direct revenue is upward of 50%, which comes back to about the same as costs via distribution channels. For brands to have grown so well in the internet decades means they did bring value, maybe it is just “loyalty” cards and points. But it did grow. Individual hotel brands can’t grow, not even like DTC brands.
HOTEL MARKETING REVOLUTION?
About me: I'm a fractional CMO for large travel technology companies helping turn them into industry leaders. I'm also the co-founder of 10minutes.news a hotel news media that is unsensational, factual and keeps hoteliers updated on the industry. AI Search and Discovery is here
Full AI booking is possibly three years away according to some (see my column below). AI search and discovery however is already in use, with AI bots accessing hotel websites for training and mapping. Some tips good tips in the link below. I wonder if creating putting a CSV file of the rates for next 90 days on the website would be a way to get that scraped by the LLM bots and includes in the results as an SEO strategy. Until there are more solid solutions worked out. Could be an interesting idea to try for a web agency that has some development skills.
AI IN HOTEL BOOKING
AI chatbots aren’t people
For a long time people have been warning against anthropomorphizing (giving a human characteristic to something) chatbots. It gives the illusion of thinking and that there is real intelligence. This might contribute to the idea that AI will replace humans. AI is a fantastic tool, not a person. Even though some may give a name to their hammer, they know it is a hammer. With AI it really does seem like a person. But, if we look at it as an incredibly powerful tool it becomes more clear how it can help people get more done, deliver better service and spend more time supporting guests. See my column below.
THE ILLUSION OF THOUGHT
Must everything scale?
Isaac French discussed his experience at Monument, a barbershop known for its exceptional service and atmosphere, where customers are willing to pay a premium. Their success lies in its focus on authenticity, intentional design, and a commitment to staying small and genuine. The conundrum of scale is hard to solve. We’ve been educated with hyperscaling. And yet the best experiences are often those that don’t really scale. Still, there must be a way to bring the joy of superior experiences to more people. Everyone deserves a bit of it :-)
PERSONALIZED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Expedia’s AI future
AI for travel search and booking is inevitable (but there might be more to it, see column below). Here’s how Expedia is preparing for it. And Booking is doing the same just much less promotion about it. AI for discovery is a no-brainer. It is so much easier to give it a ton of context through a voice chat and have it refine the search.
EXPEDIA AI TRAVEL FUTURE
Podcast: I was invited on the Hospitality Daily Podcast and spoke about technology in hospitality, some thoughts on what wont change in hospitality, and why I co-founded 10minutes.news. Best, MartinOpinion
AI isn’t the end of travel agents. It’s their industrial revolution.
There’s a chart floating around LinkedIn showing that the travel agent workforce declined by about 30% since the rise of OTAs and online booking. Only 30%! I was surprised. I assumed there were maybe 30% left. But that might actually be part of the story we’re missing.
The travel industry has grown massively. Probably thanks to the easy access to online travel booking, more people travel than ever before. And here’s where it gets interesting: AI might not replace the travel agent… it might make more of them.
It sounds counter to all the talk about “AI is coming for your job” and the narrative that AI will automate away the need for agents entirely. Just ask a chatbot to plan your trip and voilà. But anyone who has actually planned family travel, rerouted a flight mid-journey, or tried to untangle a hotel over-booking at midnight the truth: AI is only great until something goes wrong. And travel, by nature, is the place where things don’t always go as planned.
Travel is often the biggest annual spend for most families, and putting that into a black box AI hoping for the best isn’t really reassuring. Most people would prefer to have someone who can look into the options, talk to you about the tradeoffs, and act fast. This is where people excel - redressing things that fell off the plan, and building trust. So, AI might actually be what makes that trust scale.
Imagine a travel agent, but augmented. AI handles the research, assembles itineraries, suggests alternatives, even manages rebookings in the background. The agent becomes the quality assurance layer, the human touchpoint, the voice of reason when everything starts unraveling, understanding the urgency and taking action. And because they’re no longer spending 80% of their time searching through endless inventory because AI does that, they can serve more clients. Think gig-economy for travel advisors—powered by AI (well, insurance and stuff like that needs to be in place).
So maybe, just maybe, AI isn’t the end of travel agents. It’s their industrial revolution.
Industrialization, Innovation and technology didn’t remove quality of life, it democratized it. IKEA gave modern design and ability to purchase one’s own furniture to the masses. AI might do the same to personalized travel planning. Everyone can have their own travel agent now.
And that idea of AI-only travel booking? It might be great, maybe it is the future and I am totally wrong. AI will be great when everything is running smoothly, but for that kind of bookings we don’t need AI we can just do it on an OTA.
I’d much rather know I can call someone who knows what I like and explain the context and they find the right ideas for me.
Good article! Check out lupath.ai - it helps you skip the endless scrolling and find the perfect destination for your next vacation way faster.
Cheers!