{
  "id": 6654363,
  "title": "AI can plan your holiday. But would you trust it to book the trip?",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/10/ai-can-plan-your-holiday-but-would-you-trust-it-to-book-the-trip",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-10T21:50:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Channel News Asia",
    "slug": "channel-news-asia",
    "url": "https://www.channelnewsasia.com/experiences/ai-travel-planning-booking-6366406"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Travellers are increasingly turning to AI for assistance in planning their holidays, finding hotels, and building itineraries. However, when it comes to money, bookings, and disruptions, human judgement still plays a crucial role. AI is transforming the way we choose destinations, accommodations, and activities, making the planning process smoother. While AI can help travellers feel more in control, it is essential to remember that the final decision often falls on human judgment.\n\nCommunications manager Jeanne Lim first tried AI for health, fitness, and career-related queries but soon found it useful for travel planning too. What appeals to her is the ability to ask questions in natural language and input multiple constraints in one go: budget, location, dates, and whether she's traveling solo, with elderly relatives, or with children. The suggestions AI provides often act as a useful starting point, but Lim emphasizes that the last phrase—finding a balance between the suggestions and personal verification—carries significant weight.\n\nImagine asking an AI assistant to plan a romantic getaway to Kyoto, seeking a peaceful setting with a garden, proximity to good cafes, and easy access to temples. The traveler can simply describe their ideal trip without the need to search through numerous options. This shift in how travel is discovered is reshaping the entire experience.\n\nHowever, the responsibility remains with the industry to ensure that recommendations are accurate and reliable. Every suggestion made by AI comes with a promise. For decades, travelers relied on their ability to search effectively, comparing multiple options using the right keywords and filters. Conversational AI works differently, allowing users to express their preferences in a conversational manner. But when it comes time to book, travelers still tend to rely on brands they trust.\n\nIn Singapore, Booking.com's research shows that AI-assisted planning is rapidly gaining traction in the Asia Pacific region. While travelers in India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand are among the most active users of AI for trip planning, those in Japan, Australia, and Hong Kong remain more cautious. Even in Singapore, travelers often turn to family, friends, verified reviews, and travel forums before ultimately settling on a choice. This highlights the slow movement of trust towards AI.\n\nThe convenience of AI-assisted planning is clear, but it also creates new challenges. When a couple asks an AI assistant for three boutique hotels in Kyoto with garden views on a quiet street, the AI narrows down the options. Hotels that don't make the shortlist face greater consequences due to reduced visibility. This new visibility battle requires travel companies to adapt and ensure that their properties are recognized and recommended by AI systems.\n\nTo prepare for this shift, companies like Ascott Limited are investing in the infrastructure needed to connect inventory, personalize experiences, and handle bookings seamlessly. However, it's essential to note that the information AI systems use may not always come directly from the hotel itself. According to McKinsey research, only 5 to 10 percent of an AI system's recommendations about a given brand are drawn from that brand's own website.\n\nThis shift in how travel is planned and recommended has led to the emergence of \"generative engine optimization.\" Hotels must structure their information in a way that AI systems can understand, making it more likely to be recommended. However, this new visibility also presents a second challenge: when AI makes a mistake, the consequences can be significant. A recommendation for a quiet boutique hotel, for example, assumes that the room is actually available.",
  "summary": "Travellers are increasingly using AI to find hotels, build itineraries and narrow their choices. When money, bookings and disruptions are involved, however, human judgement still matters.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}