Is ChatGPT about to change travel as we know it?

Technology has undeniably changed the way we travel. When I plan a vacation, there are usually multiple spreadsheets of potential itineraries and budget numbers, docs full of information on certain places I want to visit within a destination, and things I want to do while there, and maps annotated to the point where it probably wouldn’t be surprising if yarn got involved. 

I book my plane tickets online or check out the best gas prices on Google Maps if I’m driving. There are apps involved in nearly every aspect—Tock for restaurants, Booking.com or Airbnb for lodging, Rome2Rio for public transport info, Gaia GPS for navigation while out on trails, Google Translate to facilitate that I am not the polyglot I wish I was—and the list goes on. Sometimes I truly am astonished when I reflect on the fact that as a kid my parents would doggedly print out MapQuest turn-by-turn directions when we ventured out-of-state; and when that failed, they figured it out with an atlas. They called an airline’s booking hotline to buy airplane tickets on the two occasions we got to fly as a family—without even being able to compare prices instantaneously against other airlines to make sure they were getting the best price possible. It’s a glaring reminder that in my relatively short life, technology has massively changed how we travel, and it will continue to do so. 

Entering the chat: ChatGPT, and the burgeoning world of artificial intelligence. In the past week, several major media outlets have published news on how AI is going to change how we travel—or will it really change anything at all (we’re looking at you, Clubhouse). We’ve got the short version of their findings here.

For travel companies, chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing’s GPT-4 may deliver an opportunity to create marketing content like email campaigns, revamp customer service live chats to be more effective, and help clarify consumer trends to shape what companies offer. 

What’s more buzzworthy is how AI can help individuals plan their travel and actually, well, travel. Because of ChatGPT’s and Bing’s GPT-4’s “generative” nature, the tech can “analyze or summarize content from a huge set of information, including web pages, books and other writing available on the internet,” according to Julie Weed of the NYTimes. It then uses that breadth of data to “create original new content.”

In theory, that means you should be able to ask ChatGPT what the most cost-effective itinerary would be for a three-week honeymoon to New Zealand if you hope to spend most of your time on the South Island hiking and running and occasionally visiting wineries (yes, this may be a personal example). The chatbot would then produce, in Weed’s poetic words, “a personalized itinerary festooned with vivid descriptions.”

Initial tests run by journalists and hopeful travelers show that ChatGPT is able to provide “recommendations as broad as finding cheap vacation destinations in Europe and as specific as finding private boat-tour operators in Lisbon.” Bing’s version of GPT even being “capable of creating a table comparing hotels,” according to Jacob Passey for The Wall Street Journal. But it’s still just a starting point for whittling down itineraries and booking info (although the starting point is whittling down a process that could take days into just minutes). 

ChatGPT’s limitations shape what we can realistically expect from the technology right now. According to Travel Market Report, the tech may occasionally generate incorrect information, produce harmful instructions or biased content, and utilizes limited knowledge of information and world events after 2021. Also, once the chatbot gives you the information, there’s no way to download or save the chat—you have to screenshot or copy and paste it yourself.

If you’re curious, Eddie Ibañez, the former chief scientist at Priceline and founder of travel-booking startup LIFE Rewards, told WSJ that AI is always worth a try. “Start your search there instead of Google next time and see if you like it,” he suggests.

It’s important to remember that this tech is very new—just launched last November. So how it shapes up is still to be determined. And while it’s an exciting prospect to be able to sift through masses of data nearly instantaneously with the kind help of a savvy chatbot to help discover travel opportunities you may never have otherwise, there’s still an opportunity to discover travel opportunities you may never have otherwise from people on the ground, willing to share their homes with curious travelers.