AI Is Changing Travel Planning – But It’s Making Great Travel Advisors More Valuable

There was a time when one of the greatest values a travel advisor provided was access to information.

We knew the destinations. We had the hotel directories. We understood airline schedules, tour operators and cruise lines. We had access to information the average traveler simply didn’t have.

That world is gone.

Today, a traveler can ask an AI tool to build a ten-day itinerary through Italy and have one in seconds. They can compare hotels, research neighborhoods, find restaurants and create a day-by-day plan almost instantly.

I don’t think the travel industry should be afraid of that.

In fact, I think something much more interesting is happening.

As information becomes easier to access, expertise becomes more valuable.

AI is changing how travel advisors work. But I believe the advisors who learn to use it well will become more efficient while spending more time on the parts of this profession technology cannot easily replicate: judgment, relationships, firsthand knowledge, personalization and taking responsibility when something doesn’t go according to plan.

And in luxury travel, those things matter enormously.

AI Is Already Part of the Travel Advisor’s Business

This isn’t something that may happen five years from now. It’s happening now.

At Host Agency Reviews’ HAR*Wired travel technology event in June, which focused on AI, automation and advisor technology, 54 percent of respondents said they were already using AI daily in their businesses and loved it. Only 2 percent said they preferred doing most things manually.

Other industry research shows just how quickly that adoption is occurring. Travelsavers and NEST reported that AI usage among advisors in their networks increased from just 22 percent in 2023 to 59 percent in 2025.

That doesn’t look like an industry fighting technology.

It looks like an industry learning how to use it.

And I think that’s exactly what should happen.

AI can be remarkably good at some of the work that consumes an advisor’s day. It can create the first draft of an email, organize research, summarize consultation notes, help develop marketing content and turn a blank page into something useful in seconds.

If technology gives an independent travel advisor more time in the week, I don’t want that advisor spending those hours doing work a computer can do.

I want them talking with clients, learning destinations, developing supplier relationships and building their business.

The question isn’t whether advisors should use AI.

The more important question is what should we use it for—and what should remain distinctly human?

A Good Itinerary on a Screen Isn’t Necessarily a Good Trip

AI is exceptionally good at producing something that looks complete.

That isn’t the same as knowing whether it will work.

Travel advisors are already seeing clients arrive with AI-generated itineraries. In one example reported by Travel Weekly this year, a client’s itinerary included an activity without recognizing that it was three hours away from where the traveler was staying. In another example, during an Andavo Travel team’s conversation at Virtuoso Travel Week in August they learned of a traveler getting to Europe only to find that their AI chat made up an entire small village that didn’t exist.

When it comes to practicality, humans have the edge every time.

AI can place a museum at 9:00, lunch at noon, a tour at 2:00 and dinner at 7:00.

A good advisor looks at the same day and thinks about the human beings living it.

Did this family arrive from the United States yesterday? Are young children or grandparents traveling? Will everyone realistically want to spend three hours in that museum? Is the “20-minute transfer” actually 45 minutes in afternoon traffic? Does this client love a full schedule, or will it make their vacation feel like work?

Sometimes the advisor’s most valuable recommendation is, “You can do all of that. I don’t think you should.”

Virtuoso’s 2026 Luxe Report, based on insights from more than 2,400 advisors across over 50 countries, makes that particularly relevant. Family and multigenerational travel rank as the top two luxury travel trends, with cultural immersion at number four and authenticity at number six.

Those travelers don’t simply need an itinerary that fits together mathematically. They need one designed around how real people travel.

You can optimize an itinerary for efficiency.

A great advisor knows when not to.

Information Still Has to Be Verified

There is another limitation we shouldn’t overlook.

AI can be confidently wrong.

It can recommend a restaurant that has closed, misunderstand a room category, provide outdated hours, miscalculate transportation time or occasionally invent information altogether.

That doesn’t make AI useless.

It makes professional judgment more important.

A luxury travel advisor doesn’t have the luxury of saying, “That’s what the AI told me.”

When a client is investing $20,000, $50,000 or considerably more in a journey, someone needs to stand behind the recommendation.

AI can generate an answer. An advisor assumes responsibility for it.

That is a very different proposition.

AI Doesn’t Know Your Client the Way You Do

Personalization is another area where I believe great advisors will become even more valuable.

AI can remember preferences when it is given the right information. But an experienced advisor often understands things the client hasn’t explicitly said.

A client may say she wants a hotel in the center of everything. Her advisor may know what she really means is that she wants to walk to dinner but needs quiet at night.

A couple may ask for the most luxurious resort on an island. Their advisor may know that the technically “best” hotel isn’t right for them because they prefer understated service and would hate a scene around the pool.

That is judgment built through experience and relationship.

And luxury travel is moving further in that direction.

Virtuoso’s 2026 research found that 55 percent of advisors expect client spending per trip to increase modestly this year, while another 28 percent expect today’s already elevated spending levels to remain steady. But what travelers are looking for increasingly centers around meaningful experiences, personalization, cultural immersion and authenticity.

Finding expensive things is easy.

Understanding which experience is worth a particular client’s time and money is harder.

AI Doesn’t Have Relationships

For me, this may be the biggest distinction of all.

Travel remains a relationship business.

AI doesn’t have a relationship with the general manager of the hotel.

It hasn’t spent three days on a ship talking with the sales team.

It doesn’t know the DMC representative who can make a phone call and open a door that normally isn’t open.

It hasn’t toured the property or heard another trusted advisor say, “I’ve stayed there. Put your clients in this room category, not that one.”

Those relationships create value in ways travelers may never see.

Sometimes it’s the welcome amenity waiting in the room. Sometimes it’s an upgrade or access to an experience the client wouldn’t have discovered on their own.

And sometimes it’s much more important.

It’s having someone to call when the flight is canceled, the hotel doesn’t have the promised room, a transfer doesn’t arrive or a traveler is standing in another country asking, “What do we do now?”

Research from Travel Market Report this year illustrates the distinction. In a study of more than 700 advisors across the United States and Canada, 54 percent said they were comfortable using AI. Yet 85 percent still preferred human support over automation when it came to building relationships with clients.

That’s an important distinction.

Travel professionals aren’t necessarily choosing between technology and people. They’re learning where each creates the most value.

AI can tell a traveler what options may exist.

A well-connected advisor may know who to call to make something happen.

More Technology Isn’t Reducing Demand for Advisors

If AI were making professional travel advice obsolete, we should already be seeing signs of it.

Instead, we’re seeing something very different.

Virtuoso has reported a sustained 76 percent increase in consumers seeking travel advisors through its website.

Think about that for a moment.

Travelers have never had more information at their fingertips. They have online booking engines, thousands of reviews, social media recommendations and now generative AI capable of creating an itinerary in seconds.

And they’re still looking for advisors.

I don’t think that’s a contradiction.

I think it’s a consequence of abundance.

When information was difficult to find, access to information had value.

When information becomes virtually unlimited, knowing which information to trust and what to do with it becomes valuable.

For luxury travelers in particular, the question is rarely just, “Where can I stay?”

It’s “Which of these hotels is right for me?”

Not “What can I do in Florence?”

But “What experience would my family actually remember five years from now?”

That’s where expertise enters the equation.

The Details AI Can’t Deliver May Matter Most

The better technology becomes at handling the ordinary parts of travel planning, the more visible the extraordinary parts become.

AI can tell you which luxury hotels exist in Paris.

A connected luxury travel advisor can know which one is right for you.

AI can tell you that a hotel offers suites.

An advisor may know the sales representative who can help when a family needs connecting rooms during a sold-out week.

AI can suggest an experience.

An advisor and destination partner may be able to arrange something that isn’t available through a public booking engine at all.

AI can build a honeymoon itinerary.

An advisor can arrange for the couple to arrive to a handwritten note, their favorite wine and a hotel team that already knows they’re celebrating.

Those may sound like small differences.

In luxury travel, small differences are often the product.

The Best Advisors Will Use AI, Not Compete With It

I don’t believe the future belongs to advisors who ignore AI.

And I don’t believe it belongs to technology that removes the advisor from the equation.

I think it belongs to advisors who understand what each does best.

Use AI to organize, research, draft and summarize. Use it to identify possibilities you may not have considered. Use it to eliminate repetitive work that keeps you from your clients.

Then apply the part only you can provide:

Verify it. Question it. Personalize it. Improve it.

At Andavo Travel, that’s how we think about technology within a luxury travel host agency. The objective isn’t technology for technology’s sake. It’s giving independent travel advisors better tools while surrounding those tools with what makes them useful: professional development, a strong advisor community, preferred supplier relationships and more than two decades as part of the Virtuoso network.

Technology can make an independent advisor faster.

A strong luxury host agency and professional network can make that advisor better connected.

The most successful advisors will increasingly have both.

The Advisor’s Role Is Moving Up the Value Chain

I think we are watching the travel advisor profession evolve in real time.

When information was scarce, knowing things created value.

Now information is abundant.

So the advisor’s value is moving somewhere else.

It is moving toward judgment – knowing what information matters.

Toward curation – knowing what belongs in the trip and what doesn’t.

Toward relationships – knowing who can make something happen.

Toward empathy – understanding how real people will experience an itinerary.

Toward advocacy – being there when something goes wrong.

And toward trust – putting your professional reputation behind the recommendations you make.

AI will continue to get better. I expect it to become an increasingly important part of how travel advisors research, market, communicate and operate their businesses.

That’s a good thing.

Because if AI can take more of the repetitive work off an advisor’s desk, it gives great advisors more time to do the work that has always mattered most.

Technology can help us plan faster.

But the future of luxury travel will still depend on people who know how to make the trip better.