In the battle of travel tour operator versus AI, who will win?

In the past few months, I’ve asked AI for a recipe that uses up the pathetic contents of my fridge, a workout plan and help crafting a diplomatic response to an angry email.

The results have been… mixed.

I’m probably not going to moonlight as a Michelin-star chef, but it helped to cut through the noise of a million Instagram fitness videos and save me time in the gym. I have not yet used it to help me travel, but tour operators report that their customers are turning to it more and more.

‘It is good for logistics, for matching very basic needs,’ says Gordon McCreadie, the managing director of If Only and Elegant Resorts. However, ‘human beings are quite social beings,’ he adds, ‘and we like to interact with people. [Our] sellers offer that impeccable human intuition and deep human expertise that you cannot get from AI’. His comments are echoed by Jules Maury, head of Scott Dunn Private — the tour operator’s invitation-only member’s club. ‘AI can only feed off the information that’s already in the system,’ she says, positing that if an admired general manager (GM) of a top hotel leaves, service might slip, but Jules is in touch with the GMs who manage the hotels she recommends and knows what is going on long before her clients and ChatGPT — which might be using outdated information and reviews—ever do. These relationships also mean she can speak to hotel staff before and during a client’s stay to make sure they have the best time possible.

‘AI has no empathy! It has no nuance and it’s not always accurate. I know my guests and I know what they like and don’t like,’ she concludes. Working with a trusted tour operator also means having someone to turn to in a moment of need, in real time, Gordon adds. ‘In the unlikely event that something goes wrong… it’s important to have people who have been there, seen it and experienced the destination.’

However, both are pragmatic. ‘We cannot ignore AI and we should all accept that we use it — it shouldn’t be an elephant in the room. Use it to get the flavour of a place and some ideas—and then come back to us for a definitive answer,’ says Jules.