AI revolutionizes tourism: Toward a new era in travel booking and marketing

The future of travel booking no longer depends solely on travelers or businesses, but on artificial intelligence. A Phocuswright report reveals that marketing is evolving toward a new concept: "B to AI," where brands will need to directly address the AI ​​agents who advise and decide on behalf of consumers.

Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are already influencing destination and service choices, recommending more affordable or personalized alternatives. As they integrate purchasing and payment options, their influence on booking decisions will grow even further. For the industry, this poses the challenge of providing reliable, transparent, and easily accessible information for these systems.

Experts point out that this shift will entail a massive overhaul of tourism technology infrastructure, from hotel management systems to global distribution platforms. Common standards will be needed to enable communication between multiple AI agents, ensuring accuracy and consistency in information.

The big promise is unprecedented hyper-personalization. AI agents will be able to make recommendations not only based on price, but also based on specific room attributes, desired experiences, or individual traveler preferences. Companies like Kayak are already moving in this direction, with projects that integrate AI into their interfaces to deliver more tailored and relevant results.

However, critical challenges remain: traveler trust in AI recommendations, information transparency, and how these systems will monetize their services without compromising fairness.

This discussion is part of Phocuswright's "New Agents Trend Series," which will continue on September 17 with a new episode focused on the convergence of generative artificial intelligence with travelers' digital identity.

Fuente: Phocuswright.