People have been swapping out travel agents for artificial intelligence recently, but should you?
“I think it's led me to some pretty decent places. For example, I'm going to go eat at Ford Garage right now,” said Lonnie Thompson, who used AI to plan his trip to Fort Myers.
The big question is, is AI just as good as a travel agent?
“AI has really brought a lot of those tools together, and it's also made it a little bit more interactive. So instead of having to plug a bunch of stuff into a website and hope for the best, you can at least think you're having a conversation,” said John Joyce, CEO of CRS Technology Consultants.
Joyce said that while AI is capable of helping you plan a trip, it could be giving you outdated suggestions.
“If there's been a major change or maybe a place had a natural disaster, it hasn't fully recovered yet or there's been an economic change there,” Joyce said.
Lester Patterson runs Traveling With Les, a travel agency that will plan your trip, so you don't have to.
“Everything from their flights, their airfare, all the way to hotels, excursions. if it's a cruise, then they want to know everything about the cruise,” Patterson said.
Joyce and Patterson agree that a big win for travel agents is that AI can’t physically go to the places you’re looking to explore.
“As someone who's been there, you can say, you know what, right down the street from that hotel, there's a four-star, a five-star restaurant. It's an Italian restaurant. I hope you like pasta. Or there's a coffee shop right around the corner, about 150 feet away from the front door that serves a great scone,” Patterson said.
If it's the price you're looking at, both options are typically free.
“My clients don't pay me anything. What they do is they pay the cruise line. They pay the hotel. They pay everybody else that's involved,” Patterson said.
While both AI and travel agents can help you plan your dream vacation, Joyce said you should choose the human way, at least for now.
“There's some really cool ideas out there, but some of those ideas have a little way to go before I would say, you know, ditch your neighborhood travel agent,” Joyce said.