One of the best sources for tips while planning a holiday is a friend who’s been there before. Well, what if your friend had the entire contents of the internet stored inside their head and could answer any question about any destination within seconds? That’s the idea behind Layla, an AI-powered chatbot designed to be the “world’s best travel agent”.
Using Layla is easier than trawling through blogs, Reddit posts, TikTok videos and travel sites to plan your trip. But to what extent can we trust AI when planning a holiday?
A 2024 study from Compare The Market found that only 21% of Aussie Millennials and Gen Z would use AI to plan a holiday. It’s a surprisingly low number, which could possibly be attributed to a pretty limited understanding of just how pervasive AI is in the travel industry.
How Are We Currently Using AI in Travel?
Airlines use it to optimise baggage handling and improve flight route efficiency, booking companies use it to monitor demand and implement dynamic pricing, and chatbots for travel agencies can create tailored recommendations. And for consumers, it’s no longer just a matter of plugging questions into ChatGPT and getting generic (or outdated) answers in response.
Take Layla for example. What sets the tool apart from potentially flawed platforms like ChatGPT is its accuracy. Sardar Bali, Layla’s co-founder, told the BBC that all the content is double-checked internally.
“All content goes through a two-step verification process, one of which is more automated, and we have a more manual process where internal teams look at different content and research it a bit.”
And it works. I’m going to Fiji next month, and though I’ve already figured out where we’re staying, out of curiosity, I asked Layla to find a hotel based on our specific needs. Within seconds she’d identified a resort that would be perfect — the exact same one that I’d decided on after weeks of researching and comparing.
How Do Travel Brands Feel About AI?
Established travel brands are getting on board the AI train as well. Last year, travel platform Booking.com introduced an AI-powered tool to help customers plan their trips. Say you’re planning a girls’ weekend in Melbourne. You could type: “Hotels in Melbourne with a rooftop bar, in a neighbourhood with cool restaurants, and rooms with two double beds,” and it’d bring up everything that fits your needs.
Hiking app AllTrails has a similar AI-powered chatbot — AllTrailsGPT — designed to help people get outdoors and start exploring. Input your request, no matter how hyperspecific (eg. “I want a trail within a 30-minute drive of my home that has great views and is dog-friendly but is less than 3km long”). You can even ask it what shoes you should wear, recent trail conditions, or how hilly the route is.
Even luggage brands are embracing AI as a powerful tool in the travel industry. Australian-based brand Zoomlite has introduced a Travel Itinerary Generator — simply answer six questions about your ideal holiday, and it’ll spit out a personalised plan just for you.
We’ve come a long way from when holiday planning involved trawling through a Lonely Planet book or wandering into a Flight Centre. When you can find all the answers you need by simply typing information into a chat box, have travel agents become redundant?
What Are AI’s Shortcomings?
The one thing AI can’t deliver is the human aspect, says Marnie, founder of Cheap Az Travel, an independent agency that’s been operating for almost two decades.
“AI can never say, ‘Oh, hey, when you go to Noosa, there’s this lady who used to row for the Australian team as a kayaker, and she runs dolphin trips’,” says Marnie.
A chatbot can’t size up an 18-year-old German backpacker and know they’re going to want a different itinerary than a retired couple on holiday, she says. “AI is never going to give that real personalised information, the personality, and the excitement that [travel agents] can give customers.”
Rather than seeing AI as a threat to their business, Marnie and her business partner Stu see it as a complementary product. Travellers can get a vague idea of what they want to see and do using a chatbot, and Cheap Az Travel can bring their itinerary to life with their own recommendations.
The thing about AI is that it’s only ever as good as the information it is trained on. While it may streamline many processes and save you a lot of time researching, at the end of the day, it’s still a computer program.
Travel is all about human connection, something that AI simply can’t replicate. At least, not yet.
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