About the Author
Josh Linkner is a five-time tech entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, and globally recognized innovation expert. He has founded or co-founded five tech companies that sold for a combined value of over $200 million, and is co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm. As Chairman of Platypus Labs, Josh helps organizations across industries build cultures of innovation and creative problem-solving.
In This Article
- Five macro shifts reshaping the industry, from AI-powered trip planning that is replacing traditional search to the trust gap between what AI can do and what travelers will let it do
- Real examples of AI at work: Royal Caribbean’s AI engine managing 15 million price points per day, Delta’s predictive maintenance system that cut cancellations by 99%, Hilton’s 41 AI use cases across 7,500 properties, and more
- Three developments to watch over the next 12-36 months
- Why human creativity and judgment still matter more than any algorithm
- A 90-day action plan for travel and hospitality leaders ready to move
The travel and hospitality industry has survived recessions, pandemics, and the wholesale disruption of how people discover, book, and experience trips. It will survive artificial intelligence too, but the industry on the other side will operate on fundamentally different economics and customer expectations.
AI has moved well beyond chatbot experiments and into the core operations of airlines, hotel chains, cruise lines, online travel agencies, and restaurants. According to a McKinsey and Skift Research report, only 4% of companies in the Skift Travel 200 mentioned AI in their 2022 annual reports; by 2024, that figure had risen to 35%. AI’s share of travel-industry venture capital funding jumped from roughly 10% in 2023 to 45% in the first half of 2025. Meanwhile, Deloitte’s 2026 Travel Industry Outlook found that nearly a quarter of travelers used generative AI tools for trip planning by late 2025, triple the rate from just three years earlier.
However, the investment and adoption numbers only tell half the story. The deeper shift is structural: AI is reshaping how prices are set, how operations are managed, how guests are served, and how trips are planned from the first search to the last review. It is compressing decision cycles that used to take hours into seconds and opening new revenue streams that legacy systems couldn’t access.
Here’s what you need to know.
Five Ways AI Is Changing Travel & Hospitality
1. Trip Planning Is Being Reinvented from Search to Conversation
For decades, travel planning followed a familiar pattern: search an online travel agency, compare options across multiple tabs, read reviews, and book. AI is collapsing that entire workflow into a single conversational experience. Travelers can now describe what they want in natural language and receive curated, personalized itineraries in seconds.
The shift is happening fast. According to Amadeus research, generative AI usage for travel planning is up 64% year-over-year, with travelers citing time savings (42%), personalized recommendations (37%), and discovering new destinations (36%) as the primary benefits. Skift’s State of Travel 2025 report found that the percentage of travelers using AI tools extensively for trip planning jumped from 13% to 30% in a single year, a 124% increase. The implications for traditional travel distribution are profound: when a traveler can describe their ideal trip to an AI assistant and get a complete, bookable itinerary, the value of browsing through hundreds of search results diminishes rapidly.
2. Revenue Management Has Become a Real-Time AI Discipline
Dynamic pricing is not new in travel, but the scale and sophistication AI brings to it is. Airlines and hotels have always adjusted rates based on demand, but AI systems can now process millions of variables simultaneously, adjusting prices in real time based on competitor pricing, weather forecasts, local events, booking velocity, and dozens of other signals.
The most striking example comes from Royal Caribbean, whose CEO told Skift Global Forum that AI now manages approximately 15 million price points per day, with over 90% of pricing decisions driven by AI. This work was previously handled by a team of over 200 revenue managers. On the hotel side, properties adopting AI-based revenue management systems are achieving 10-15% higher revenue by dynamically adjusting room rates based on demand patterns. As these tools become more accessible and affordable, the gap between AI-equipped operators and those still relying on manual revenue management will only widen.
3. The Guest Experience Is Becoming Predictive, Not Reactive
Hospitality has always been about anticipating guest needs, but AI is taking that principle to an entirely new level. Instead of waiting for a guest to request something, AI systems can predict what they’ll want before they ask.
Hilton has deployed 41 distinct AI use cases across its 7,500 properties in 138 countries, spanning marketing, operations, and guest experience, with three implementations producing measurable returns within six months. On the consumer side, 64% of travelers say they would use an AI travel assistant mid-trip for real-time updates and local recommendations, and 17% would pay up to 5% of their total trip value for such a service. The shift from reactive service (“the guest asked for extra towels”) to predictive service (“based on this guest’s profile and stay pattern, they’ll likely need early checkout and a car to the airport”) represents a fundamental change in how hospitality operates.
4. Operations Are Being Optimized from Kitchen to Cockpit
Some of the highest-value AI applications in travel and hospitality are invisible to the customer but transformative for the bottom line. Predictive maintenance, fuel optimization, food waste reduction, and workforce scheduling are all being reshaped by AI systems that can process operational data at a scale no human team can match.
Delta Air Lines’ APEX program is one of the most compelling examples. The AI-driven predictive maintenance system reduced maintenance-related flight cancellations from 5,600 per year to just 55, saving eight figures annually and winning Aviation Week’s Innovation Award in 2024. In the hotel space, Hilton’s deployment of Winnow’s AI-powered kitchen scales cut food waste by over 60% across 200 properties. Royal Caribbean uses AI to predict food production needs every 15 minutes on its ships, reducing waste by 50%. These aren’t pilot programs. They’re scaled deployments delivering measurable financial returns.
5. The Trust Gap Is the Industry’s Biggest Challenge
Perhaps the most important insight for travel leaders is this: travelers are embracing AI tools for inspiration and planning, but they are not ready to hand over control. Skift’s research found that only 2% of travelers are currently willing to give an AI tool full autonomy to make and modify bookings without human oversight. The McKinsey and Skift survey confirmed this pattern: while nearly 60% of travel executives credit AI with boosting productivity, travelers themselves want AI that assists and recommends, not AI that decides.
This trust gap is not a failure of the technology. It’s a reflection of what travel means to people. A vacation, a family reunion, a honeymoon: these are high-stakes, emotionally significant experiences. Travelers want the efficiency AI provides, but they want to remain in the driver’s seat. The organizations that win in this environment will be the ones that design AI as a co-pilot, not an autopilot, giving travelers the speed of AI with the control and reassurance of human-led decisions.
How AI Is Actually Being Used Today
Royal Caribbean’s AI-Powered Pricing Engine
Royal Caribbean’s CEO Jason Liberty revealed at the Skift Global Forum that the company’s AI pricing engine now manages approximately 15 million price points per day, with over 90% of those decisions driven by AI rather than human revenue managers. This represents a dramatic shift from a model that previously required a team of more than 200 people. Beyond pricing, Royal Caribbean uses AI to predict food production needs every 15 minutes on its 69 ships, contributing to a 50% reduction in food waste. The company’s AI algorithms also analyze past cruise data and in-app behavior to create hyper-personalized daily schedules of shows, activities, and dining for each guest. Liberty noted that the company sits on “Himalayas” of data and is only beginning to unlock its full potential.
Delta Air Lines’ Predictive Maintenance Revolution
Delta’s APEX program represents one of the most impactful applications of AI in aviation. The system combines AI with real-time sensor data to predict component failures well before they occur, replacing reactive maintenance with proactive intervention. The results are staggering: maintenance-related flight cancellations dropped from 5,600 per year to just 55, a 99% reduction. Delta reports the program saves eight figures annually and has increased predictive material demand accuracy from 60% to over 90%, allowing the airline to forecast parts needs years in advance compared to the industry standard of three to six months. The system also reduced engine repair turnaround times to under 90 days internally, compared to 150-200 days with outside vendors. APEX won Aviation Week’s Innovation Award in 2024.
Hilton’s 41 AI Use Cases Across 7,500 Properties
Hilton has taken a comprehensive approach to AI adoption, deploying 41 distinct AI use cases across its global portfolio of 7,500 properties in 138 countries. Three of those implementations produced measurable returns within six months. On the marketing side, AI-powered campaigns delivered double-digit incremental revenue growth. On the operations side, Hilton’s deployment of Winnow’s AI-powered kitchen scales cut food waste by over 60% across 200 hotels. The company’s customer service chatbots cut query resolution times by 50% and received 90% positive feedback. Notably, Hilton trained 400,000 staff members on AI tools without relying on external consultants, demonstrating that large-scale AI adoption in hospitality is as much a people initiative as a technology one.
Expedia’s Romie and Booking.com’s AI Smart Filter
In May 2024, Expedia debuted Romie, an AI-powered travel companion that functions as trip planner, concierge, and personal assistant combined. Romie can join SMS group chats to help plan trips collaboratively, pull travel information from emails, build itineraries, monitor weather disruptions, and provide real-time updates during a trip. Expedia has also launched as an interactive app within ChatGPT, allowing users to plan and book travel directly through OpenAI’s interface. Meanwhile, Booking.com has rolled out AI-powered Smart Filter (describe your ideal property in natural language), Property Q&A (AI answers specific questions by scanning listings, reviews, and photos), and AI-generated Review Summaries across its inventory of 28+ million listings. The traditional OTA search experience is being replaced by conversational, AI-driven discovery.
What’s Coming Next: Three Moves to Watch (12-36 Months)
1. Agentic AI Will Reshape How Trips Are Discovered and Booked
The next phase of AI in travel goes beyond answering questions to independently executing multi-step tasks. IDC predicts that 30% of travel bookings will be executed by AI agents by 2030, fundamentally reshaping the traditional distribution channel model. The McKinsey and Skift report found that 80% of travel sector executives plan to deploy agentic AI within three years. Google is already building agentic travel booking capabilities for flights and hotels, collaborating with Booking.com and Marriott.
The strategic implication is significant. When AI agents can compare, negotiate, and book across providers on behalf of a traveler, the brands that win will be the ones whose content, data, and booking infrastructure are optimized for AI consumption. IHG is already building an AI-compatible hotel content platform that restructures property information into modular, machine-readable data. The hotels and airlines that make it easy for AI agents to find, evaluate, and book their inventory will capture a disproportionate share of this emerging channel.
2. Biometric AI Will Make Travel Frictionless
Facial recognition, iris scanning, and other biometric AI technologies are rapidly transforming the airport and hotel check-in experience. Nearly half of the world’s major airports have now implemented biometric identity management, with verification completing in under two seconds and biometric kiosks accelerating passenger processing by up to 5x. India’s Digi Yatra program has expanded to 29 airports, and the TSA is rolling out touchless ID programs to dozens more U.S. airports.
However, regulation is also accelerating. The EU AI Act’s high-risk system rules, including restrictions on biometric identification, take full effect in August 2026, with real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces banned except for narrow law enforcement exceptions. Penalties run up to 35 million euros or 7% of global annual turnover. Travel leaders deploying biometric AI must balance the obvious operational benefits against evolving privacy regulations and traveler expectations. The companies that get this balance right will deliver a genuinely frictionless experience. Those that get it wrong will face regulatory action and a trust backlash.
3. The Workforce Challenge Will Determine Who Wins
The travel and hospitality sector faces a structural workforce crisis that AI is both intensifying and helping to solve. The World Travel & Tourism Council reports that while travel and tourism supported 357 million jobs globally in 2024 with 91 million new jobs expected by 2035, the sector faces a projected shortfall of 43 million workers by that date, with the hospitality subsector alone facing an 8.6 million worker gap. Deloitte found that 81% of hoteliers prioritize increasing employee productivity, and 49% list integrating AI-powered solutions as a top technology initiative.
The organizations that succeed will use AI to handle the repetitive, high-volume tasks that are hardest to staff (night audit processing, basic guest inquiries, housekeeping scheduling) while freeing their human teams for the high-touch, relationship-driven work that defines great hospitality. This is not about replacing hospitality workers. It’s about making each team member more effective in an industry that simply cannot hire enough people to meet growing demand.
The Human Factor: Why Creativity Still Wins
With all of this technological momentum, it’s tempting to conclude that the future of travel belongs to whoever has the best algorithm, but it doesn’t. It belongs to whoever combines the best tools with the most creative, adaptable human thinking.
In my work with leaders across industries, I’ve seen a consistent pattern: the organizations that thrive in periods of disruption aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest technology budgets. They’re the ones that cultivate what I call a Find A Way™ mindset, an organization-wide commitment to creative problem-solving that prioritizes agility over brute force and improvisation over perfect planning.
In travel and hospitality, this matters enormously. AI can manage 15 million price points per day, but it takes a human to recognize that a particular market opportunity requires a fundamentally different pricing philosophy. AI can predict that a guest prefers a high floor with a city view, but it takes a human concierge to notice the anniversary flowers in the lobby and upgrade the room before the couple arrives. AI can cut food waste by 50% on a cruise ship, but it takes a human chef to cook the meal that makes guests want to come back.
The McDonald’s drive-through AI story is instructive. The company invested heavily in IBM-powered automated order taking at over 100 locations, then pulled the plug in July 2024 when the technology couldn’t meet the 95% accuracy threshold franchisees required, particularly with accents and dialects. The lesson isn’t that AI failed. It’s that deploying AI in customer-facing roles requires a higher standard of reliability than back-office applications, and the organizations that understand this distinction will outperform those that don’t.
Start small and start now. Maybe it’s your revenue management team running a 90-day pilot on AI-assisted dynamic pricing for one property segment. Maybe it’s your operations group testing an AI-powered demand forecasting tool for food production at a single location before scaling across the portfolio. Maybe it’s a cross-functional workshop where your front desk team, revenue managers, and technology leads identify the three AI use cases most likely to move the needle in the next 12 months. The breakthroughs accumulate, but only if you start accumulating them.
A 90-Day AI Action Plan for Travel & Hospitality Leaders
1. Pick One High-Friction Problem and Solve It Well
Don’t attempt to “do AI” across your entire operation simultaneously. Choose one workflow, whether it’s dynamic pricing for a single property type, AI-assisted guest messaging, predictive maintenance for one fleet segment, or automated food waste tracking. Define your success metrics before you start, prove value, then scale.
2. Audit Your Data and Content Infrastructure
AI is only as good as the data it runs on. In travel and hospitality, this is particularly acute: property management systems often run on legacy architectures with inconsistent data, guest profiles are siloed across loyalty, booking, and operational systems, and hotel content is not structured for AI consumption. IHG’s decision to overhaul its hotel data for AI agents is a leading indicator of where the industry is headed. Before purchasing another AI platform, invest in getting your data foundation right. The organizations that build clean, integrated, machine-readable data infrastructure now will deploy new AI applications faster later. The ones that wait will spend their time in remediation.
3. Train for Judgment, Not Just Tools
The biggest mistake travel and hospitality leaders make with AI adoption is treating it as a technology initiative rather than a people initiative. Your team needs training not just on which AI tools to use, but on when to trust AI outputs, when to apply human judgment, and how to maintain the warmth and personal connection that defines great hospitality in an increasingly automated environment. Hilton trained 400,000 staff members on AI tools without external consultants. That kind of organizational commitment to building AI fluency across the entire workforce, not just the technology team, is what separates leaders from followers in this space.
Metrics to Watch
As you execute, track operational efficiency improvements in the specific workflow you’ve targeted, and track AI adoption confidence among your team. If your people are using the tools but not trusting them, you have a governance and training problem. If they’re trusting them without questioning outputs, you have a different but equally serious problem. The goal is informed, confident, human-led AI integration.
The Bottom Line
The travel and hospitality industry isn’t being replaced by AI. It’s being reorganized around it. The leaders, firms, and professionals who strategically and creatively engage with this shift will define the next era of the industry. Travel sits at a unique inflection point: it is the sector where the experience is the product, where trust is paramount, and where the human element of service has always been the ultimate differentiator. AI will not change that. It will raise the bar for what exceptional service looks like.
The best time to start was yesterday. The second-best time is today. Find a way.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is AI currently being used in the travel and hospitality industry?
AI is being deployed across the full travel value chain: AI-powered trip planning and booking, dynamic pricing and revenue management, predictive maintenance for airlines and hotels, personalized guest experiences, automated customer service, and operational optimization from food production to workforce scheduling. According to a McKinsey and Skift report, 35% of major travel companies now mention AI in their annual reports, up from just 4% in 2022, and AI’s share of travel VC funding jumped from 10% to 45% between 2023 and 2025.
How is AI changing how travelers plan and book trips?
Generative AI is transforming trip planning from a multi-tab search process into a conversational experience. Amadeus research found that generative AI usage for travel planning is up 64% year-over-year. Major platforms like Expedia (with its Romie AI assistant) and Booking.com (with AI-powered Smart Filters and Property Q&A) are replacing traditional search with AI-driven discovery. However, only 2% of travelers are willing to give AI full booking autonomy, indicating that the industry must design AI as an assistant rather than a decision-maker.
What is the impact of AI on hotel and airline operations?
The operational impact is substantial. Delta Air Lines’ APEX predictive maintenance system reduced maintenance-related flight cancellations from 5,600 per year to just 55, saving eight figures annually. Hilton cut food waste by over 60% across 200 hotels using AI-powered kitchen monitoring. Royal Caribbean’s AI pricing engine manages 15 million price points per day with over 90% AI-driven decisions. Hotels using AI-based revenue management are seeing 10-15% higher revenue through dynamic rate optimization.
Will AI replace jobs in travel and hospitality?
The picture is complex. The World Travel & Tourism Council projects that the sector will add 91 million new jobs by 2035, but it also faces a 43 million worker shortfall. AI is being deployed primarily to address this labor gap, handling repetitive, high-volume tasks while freeing human workers for guest-facing, relationship-driven roles. Hilton’s approach of training 400,000 staff on AI tools demonstrates that leading organizations see AI as a workforce multiplier rather than a replacement strategy.
Where should travel and hospitality leaders start with AI?
Pick one high-friction, measurable workflow and deploy an AI solution with clear success metrics. Simultaneously, audit your data infrastructure to ensure you have clean, integrated guest and operational data across property management, booking, and loyalty systems. Then invest in training your team not just on tools, but on the judgment required to use AI responsibly while preserving the human warmth that defines great hospitality. The organizations seeing the strongest results are the ones combining focused use cases, strong data foundations, and deliberate change management.
Learn more about Josh Linkner’s keynote speaking in Travel & Hospitality.
Josh Linkner speaks to travel and hospitality organizations and industry leaders around the world about innovation, navigating disruption, and building cultures that thrive in an era of rapid change. To explore how Josh can energize your next event, schedule a call today.