The travel industry is one where a strong argument can be made for consumers having a disproportionate impact on prevailing trends and developments – with businesses often racing to catch-up.
NB: This is an article from SiteMinder, one of our Expert Partners
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Over time, the tightly controlled sphere of influence that travel agents and marketers enjoyed has been broken down. Travellers now have so many diverse ways to find inspiration, research, and book their trips, and often it’s their peers who are driving their decision-making.
With the rise of AI, the grasp that traditional operators have on travellers grows looser still.
While part one of this series showed us that hoteliers are experimenting cautiously with AI tools behind the scenes, millions of travellers around the world have already made AI their first port of call when planning trips. They’re no longer starting their journey on Google or even directly on booking platforms. Instead, they’re having conversations with ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot to explore travel logistics, find hotels, create itineraries, get advice on attractions, plan activities, and more. By the time they ever click on a website, they already know exactly where they want to go and where they want to stay.
This shift is happening faster than many in the industry realise, and it has the potential to reshape the entire guest acquisition funnel.
AI adoption amongst travellers is accelerating rapidly
AI has well and truly entered the mainstream and for travellers it’s becoming just as essential as Google and TripAdvisor used to be.
SiteMinder’s Changing Traveller report 2026, surveying 12,000 travellers worldwide, revealed that 80% of travellers now want AI-powered capabilities during their booking journey, a four-fold increase from the previous year. The desired applications in this process include price monitoring, scam detection, and budgeting advice.
Furthermore, 40% of travellers under 35 say they have already experimented with AI tools for trip planning, with itinerary planning and research amongst the most popular uses.
