Can ChatGPT plan your vacation? Here’s what to know about AI and travel

One day soon, in the artificial-intelligence-powered future, a vacation might start by telling your smartphone something like this: “I want to take a four-day trip to Los Angeles in June, whenever airfares and hotel rates are best, using loyalty rewards points. I want to hit a history museum and an amusement park, and then I’d like a 7 p.m. dinner reservation near the hotel at a restaurant with vegan options and a great wine list.” And your phone spits out the perfect itinerary.
But for now, travelers using ChatGPT — the powerful new AI software that is already offering creative cocktail recipes and writing college papers — may have to temper their expectations.
Oded Battat, general manager at Traveland, a travel agency in Bridgeport, Connecticut, asked ChatGPT for outings he might offer his clients going to Tuscany, Italy, to see if it could help him with his work. He got a list of 14 activities, including winery tours and museum visits, with a stop for gelato in the town square of the medieval hill town San Gimignano.
“I knew of all these things,” Battat said, but he added that ChatGPT saved him the hassle of collecting all the information and delivered it in a format he was able to email to one of the clients.
ChatGPT, the service Battat has begun using, burst onto the scene in November, and it has already begun to shake up tech-driven industries, including travel. Unlike the AI that’s already familiar to most consumers — think website chatbots — ChatGPT is “generative,” meaning it can analyze or summarize content from a huge set of information, including webpages, books and other writing available on the internet, and use that data to create original new content. Its advanced natural language capabilities also mean it understands and responds in a more conversational way.
Many Uses, and Limitations
The travel industry may never be the same. Already, travelers can “converse” with the system, sharing information like a destination, time of year and interests, and getting back a personalized itinerary festooned with vivid descriptions.
A reporter’s recent request for a two-day itinerary to Whistler, British Columbia, yielded ideas like snowshoeing with a guide who will point out the local flora and fauna, and taking a dog-sled ride “with a team of beautiful huskies” for a winter trip. Given additional parameters, ChatGPT will update its suggestions, so adding a preference for Thai food to the Whistler conversation prompted the system to give new restaurant suggestions.
But ChatGPT does have limitations. First, its information base currently does not go beyond 2021, and it does not have access to important travel-related data that can change from moment to moment, like airline schedules and weather forecasts.
New versions are being developed, including a major upgrade released this week, and are expected to keep improving. Also, the software doesn’t always know the difference between reliable and unreliable information on the internet, so it can offer answers that are untrue. ChatGPT’s maker, OpenAI, also warns that the software may occasionally produce “biased content.”
Anyone can use the software, which is free and accessible via the OpenAI website. Tourist bureaus can ask ChatGPT to write marketing copy describing must-see sites, and travel advisers can use it to compose emails to their clients and create social media posts. Airline, hotel and rental car companies could use it to help their virtual agents answer a wider variety of questions.