By Brinley Hineman – Travel Weekly
March 11, 2025

With the growing sophistication of generative AI, some tour operators are harnessing the technology to track trends and provide insight into where potential clients want to go and what they want to do.

Among them is Railbookers Group. The rail tour operator uses AI to uncover travel trends and reveal what is driving the popularity of destinations. The technology has advanced Railbookers’ ability to develop itineraries for trending destinations and better serve customers to such a degree that CEO Frank Marini, who hired a data scientist to develop AI technology for the company, likened AI to the rise of the internet in the ’90s.

But not all tour operators are eager to jump onboard. Recent industry research from Arival found the majority don’t use the tool at all.

“ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and a host of other generative AI applications may be the most talked-about tools in travel, technology and just about any industry these days, but only a small percentage of operators report putting these applications to work,” said Douglas Quinby, co-founder and CEO of Arival in a post about the report’s findings. “This represents a huge missed opportunity for operators.”

Many larger tour operators, however, said they are using AI, or at least intend to use it. A 2024 USTOA-PWC survey found that 75% of USTOA members agreed that GenAI will support staff by automating routine tasks, while 65% agreed it will significantly enhance their ability to improve operations and their ability to personalize travel itineraries.

“You have to embrace it,” said Marini. “This is like the internet coming out in the past. You have to embrace it.”

Railbookers began using AI after Marini attended a course on the technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year, spurring the technology rollout. “Now, it’s embedded in the whole company,” he said.

 

 

The AI, which is being developed for Railbookers’ exact needs, has already helped identify budding trends. By analyzing customer call transcripts, Marini said, Railbookers can identify top questions clients have and also better understand what is fueling interest in certain rail routes.

With the help of AI, Railbookers has identified a growing interest in what Marini calls “little luxuries,” where travelers book one-off luxe experiences during their trip. The company has also observed a rise in train travel interest for Italy and for visiting both Switzerland and Italy by rail.

If the technology flags a repeated customer question, Railbookers will create educational content on the topic for consumers and travel advisors.

The Globus family of brands is also utilizing AI to help advisors.

The company is developing AI applications to enhance advisor productivity and profitability, said chief marketing officer Steve Born. Examples include creating an automated chatbot, prepopulating reservation details, increasing self-service through the Travel Agent Portal and using AI-enhanced tools within the contact center software to speed up service.

“Our immediate vision for AI is to help create efficiencies for advisors, saving time while providing even better service,” Born said.

Contiki, a Travel Corporation brand focused on 18- to 35-year-olds, discovered recently that its clients embrace AI for travel inspiration but not to make actual bookings. In Contiki’s 2024 Voice of a Generation survey, 56% of Gen Z respondents said they use AI to discover local activities, and 60% use it to find discounts. But just 7% said they would let AI book an entire trip.

“For travel advisors, these findings highlight a golden opportunity: Gen Z values technology as an enhancement, not a replacement, for personalized, human-guided booking experiences,” said Melissa DaSilva, interim CEO of TTC Tour Brands.

Collette said it uses AI on a daily basis to survey current data and make real-time decisions and changes to its tour products. The company launched an AI committee last year to develop guardrails and continuously researches how to use the technology.

Travel Deliciously, a Great Lakes-region tour operator specializing in international culinary trips, uses ChatGPT to analyze contracts to summarize key terms, “saving hours of manual review time,” said founder and president Theresa Nemetz.

The technology has proved instrumental in analyzing website content for SEO, which helps Travel Deliciously reach a wider audience online. The company has used ChatGPT for about a year but began using it routinely in the past six months.

“Everyone has been excited to use it because it helps everyone work so efficiently,” Nemetz said. “It has become a personal assistant for us.”