Artificial intelligence has moved well beyond the experimental stage in travel. In 2026, airlines, hotels, destination organisations and technology companies are putting it to practical use—from understanding traveller behaviour and managing disruptions to building itineraries and improving day-to-day operations.
For travellers, the change is equally visible. Planning a holiday traditionally meant moving between search engines, airline websites, hotel platforms, Maps and travel blogs. New AI-based tools are bringing many of these activities into a single planning experience.
For the industry, however, the bigger story is not the chatbot. It is the growing combination of AI, reliable data and connected travel platforms.
Destinations Are Getting Smarter With Data
Destination management organisations are beginning to use data more effectively to understand what is happening on the ground.
Jackson Hole in Wyoming is a useful example. The Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board worked with Datafy on a real-time dashboard that combines information from lodging reports, flight tracking, national park visits, utilities and other sources.
Earlier, collecting much of this information involved spreadsheets and considerable manual work. Bringing the data together gives local stakeholders a clearer picture of visitor activity and its impact.
The information can also help the destination respond differently during busy periods. Instead of simply running campaigns to attract more tourists, officials can focus communication on responsible visitation and use available data to understand issues involving transport, waste and wildlife.
This represents an important change in destination marketing. Tourism organisations are no longer looking only at how many people they can attract. They also need to understand when visitors arrive, where they go and how tourism affects local communities.
New York Uses AI to Help Event Planners
New York City Tourism has taken another route by using AI to assist meeting and event planners.
Working with GuideGeek, the organisation introduced a tool that helps planners discover venues, suppliers, attractions, restaurants and entertainment options.
The early numbers were notable. NYC Tourism reported a 100% rise in traffic to its meeting-planner website and more than 800 AI-driven queries during the first month. Newsletter registrations increased by 150% while the average time spent on the website rose by 10%.
There is another useful advantage. Questions submitted by planners can show the organisation what information people are actually looking for. That knowledge can then influence future content.
The tool supports 45 languages, which is particularly relevant as New York prepares for international visitors connected with the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Smaller Tourism Businesses Could Also Benefit
Visit Isle of Man is exploring how AI can improve the visitor experience while creating opportunities for local tourism businesses.
Its innovation challenge concentrates on three broad areas: destination storytelling, visitor experience and booking.
The visitor-experience element looks at helping tourists navigate the island, discover relevant places and avoid overcrowded areas. The booking element aims to make it easier for visitors to purchase directly from local providers.
This could be particularly useful for smaller attractions and independent tourism businesses.
Large hotels and travel companies generally have established booking technology and marketing budgets. Smaller operators often do not enjoy the same online reach. Better digital tools could give them another way to reach travellers without relying entirely on major global distribution platforms.
AI Moves Into Core Travel Operations
The transformation is not limited to destination marketing.
TCS expects AI to become part of the operating fabric of travel and logistics rather than remain a separate technology initiative.
Airlines, airports, hotels, mobility providers, payment companies and logistics businesses increasingly operate through connected systems. That creates opportunities to use data and AI to understand customer requirements and respond in real time.
For airlines, one of the clearest applications is disruption management.
When a flight is cancelled or delayed, AI-supported systems can assist with rebooking, compensation and passenger communication. Airlines can also bring booking, loyalty, operational and partner information together to create more relevant offers.
Hotels are seeing similar changes.
AI agents can assist with room allocation, housekeeping schedules, maintenance and demand forecasting. Automating some operational work gives hotel employees more time for areas where human interaction remains important.
Google Brings Travel Planning Into AI Mode
Google’s latest travel developments show how quickly AI is moving towards the consumer side of the industry.
Travel planning capabilities are being incorporated into AI Mode in Google Search, with Canvas acting as a workspace where users can organise a trip.
A traveller can describe the destination, dates and type of holiday they want. The system can then bring together information about flights, hotels, attractions, Maps, reviews and other web content to create an editable itinerary.
The important part is that travellers do not necessarily have to start again every time they change their plans. They can continue the conversation and modify individual parts of the itinerary.
Flight Tracking Joins the Conversation
Google is also bringing its existing flight-price tracking capability into the AI planning process.
Instead of moving separately to Google Flights, travellers can set up price tracking while discussing their trip.
It sounds like a relatively small change, but convenience matters in travel planning. Every additional website, search and form adds another step.
Reducing those steps could make fare tracking easier for travellers who may never have actively used the feature before.
AI Overviews Can Build Larger Itineraries
Google’s AI Overviews are also expanding their role in travel research.
The technology can produce day-by-day suggestions covering activities and places to eat, with the scope extending beyond individual cities to regions and, in some cases, countries.
This could change the early stages of holiday research.
A traveller searching for a two-week Portugal itinerary, for example, may receive a structured starting point instead of having to open several travel blogs and compare different recommendations manually.
That convenience also creates pressure for travel publishers whose traffic depends heavily on traditional Google searches.
Maps and Gemini Add Visual Discovery
Google Maps and Gemini are adding another dimension to trip planning: images.
Gemini-powered capabilities can recognise places shown in screenshots and use that information to suggest nearby restaurants and activities.
Imagine seeing an interesting restaurant or attraction in a social-media post. Instead of manually searching for the name and then researching the surrounding area, the technology can help identify the place and connect it with Maps information.
This brings visual discovery closer to the actual travel-planning process.
Travel Search Is Also Changing
For travel brands, the changes go beyond introducing another digital tool.
TCS points to the growing importance of answer engine optimisation (AEO) and generative engine optimisation (GEO).
Traditional search engine optimisation has largely concentrated on achieving strong positions in search results. Conversational AI introduces another question: Will an AI system recognise, trust and recommend your brand when somebody asks for travel advice?
That makes accurate, structured and authoritative information increasingly important for destinations, hotels, airlines and other travel businesses.
Convenience Still Requires Verification
AI can make travel planning faster, but it does not remove the need to check important details.
Restaurant opening hours change. Attractions close temporarily. Flight schedules move. Local events can be postponed or cancelled.
An itinerary generated several weeks before departure may therefore contain information that is no longer current.
Travellers should treat an AI-generated itinerary as a useful planning tool rather than an unquestionable final schedule, particularly when reservations, transport connections or time-sensitive activities are involved.
What Comes Next for Travel?
The most important change taking place in travel is not that AI can write an itinerary.
It is that artificial intelligence is becoming connected with the systems that already run the industry—flight information, hotel operations, destination data, payments, Maps, customer profiles and logistics networks.
That connection has implications for almost every part of the travel journey.
Travellers could spend less time jumping between websites. Airlines could respond faster when journeys are disrupted. Hotels could automate routine operational decisions. Destination organisations could better understand visitor flows and smaller tourism businesses could improve their digital visibility.
But technology alone will not decide who succeeds.
Accurate information, traveller trust, strong cybersecurity and reliable data remain critical. As more travel decisions begin with a conversation rather than a conventional search page, businesses will also have to think carefully about how their information reaches the AI systems making those recommendations.
In 2026, that shift is becoming difficult for the travel industry to ignore.
