AI IS BECOMING THE STARTING POINT FOR TRAVEL PLANNING
Travelers aren’t just experimenting with artificial intelligence when they plan trips. They’re actually booking vacations with it.
Nearly eight in 10 travelers who use AI tools say they have already booked travel primarily based on AI-generated recommendations, according to new research from TakeUp, which surveyed hundreds of U.S. leisure travelers.
“What surprised me most was how fast trust has formed,” Bobby Marhamat, CEO of TakeUp, told Newsweek. “That tells us this isn’t experimentation anymore. It’s behavior.”
The findings suggest AI has moved beyond novelty in travel planning and is now shaping real purchasing decisions.
While awareness of AI-powered travel tools is already high, usage accelerates quickly once travelers try them, and many do not return to their old habits.
From Assistant to Starting Point
Not long ago, AI was often treated as a supplemental tool, useful for sparking ideas or answering quick questions. That role has evolved rapidly.
“A year ago, AI was a nice-to-have assistant,” Marhamat said. “Today, it’s becoming the starting point. Travelers are using it to narrow choices, set budgets, and make decisions faster, not just to brainstorm ideas.”
TakeUp’s research shows that awareness of AI travel tools far outpaces actual usage, but Marhamat sees that gap as temporary rather than ideological.
“That gap looks like inertia, not resistance,” he noted. “Many travelers are comfortable with their current process, but once they try AI and see the time savings, usage ramps up quickly. It’s a very normal adoption curve.”
Among travelers who adopt AI, TakeUp’s research indicates repeat usage is common, with many returning to AI for most or every trip they plan.
“AI removes friction,” Marhamat said. “It saves hours, reduces overwhelm, and increases confidence. Once travelers feel like they’re making smarter decisions with less effort, it’s very hard to go back.”
The shift echoes earlier findings showing that AI is increasingly influencing how travelers discover and evaluate lodging options, even when final bookings still happen on traditional platforms.
AI as the Filter, Humans as the Check
Despite rising trust, travelers are not abandoning traditional sources. Instead, AI is becoming the first step in a layered decision process.
“AI is the filter. Traditional tools are the confirmation,” Marhamat said. “Travelers let AI narrow the field, then they validate with reviews, OTAs [online travel agencies], or people they trust before booking.”
That dynamic helps explain how trust in AI can coexist with continued verification. Travelers are comfortable acting on AI guidance, but they still want reassurance, particularly when cost, timing and expectations are involved.
“Trust means accuracy, relevance, and transparency,” Marhamat said. “Travelers are comfortable following AI guidance, but they’re still cautious about outdated information, privacy, and generic results that don’t reflect their preferences.”
For many travelers, the appeal of AI goes beyond speed.
“It signals a shift from browsing to delegating,” Marhamat said. “Travelers are increasingly comfortable letting AI do the heavy lifting and acting on its recommendations rather than manually comparing dozens of options.”
In practice, that often means delegating the initial search and comparison to AI, while using traditional sources to confirm a much smaller set of options.
That delegation comes with limits. Despite high satisfaction, AI-powered travel planning still has friction points. The biggest gaps center on accuracy and personalization.
“Real-time accuracy is the biggest gap,” Marhamat said. “Travelers want live pricing, availability, and more personalized outputs. When AI feels generic or slightly out of sync with reality, trust erodes quickly.”
Concerns about privacy and outdated information remain especially salient among travelers who have not yet adopted AI, reinforcing why some still rely on traditional planning methods, such as checking multiple booking sites or consulting friends before committing.
Visibility Becomes the New Gatekeeper
As AI becomes a primary gateway into travel planning, visibility inside AI-generated recommendations is emerging as a critical issue for hotels, accommodations and experience providers.
“If you’re invisible to AI, you’re invisible to a growing share of travelers,” Marhamat said. “Discovery is no longer just about ranking on OTAs or Google. It’s about being legible, accurate, and easy for AI to recommend.”
He added that the advantage increasingly goes to properties that AI systems can easily understand and surface.
“The winners will be the properties that make it effortless for AI to match them to a traveler’s exact request, then back it up with trusted signals like strong reviews, clear policies, and consistent information across channels,” he said.
Other travel industry research last year highlighted a similar gap between AI investment and traveler-facing impact.
Hotels and airlines have been increasing AI spending, but much of that investment has remained focused on internal operations like pricing, forecasting and marketing optimization rather than on tools that shape how travelers discover, compare and book trips. Even so, Marhamat says resistance among travelers remains limited.
“Most non-users aren’t opposed,” he said. “They just haven’t seen a clear reason to switch. Saving money, saving time, and seeing concrete examples of value are what push them to try.”
As AI tools become more integrated into familiar platforms and demonstrate tangible benefits, many of those holdouts are likely to convert.
A Shift in Mindset
“Travelers expect AI to be proactive,” Marhamat said. “They want personalized deals, smarter alerts, and tools that adapt as plans change. The bar is moving from reactive answers to anticipatory help.”
Zooming out, the research suggests a broader change in how travelers approach decision-making.
“Travel planning is shifting from effort-driven to outcome-driven,” Marhamat said. “Travelers care less about the process and more about getting to a great decision quickly. AI is changing the mindset from ‘search and compare’ to ‘ask and act.’”
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2026-01-14T13:18:05Z