AI Will Speed Travel Agent Decline, Says Booking CEO. Not So, Says ASTA Boss

There has been a resurgence in the use of travel agents since the pandemic – and even before – especially for luxury trips.

One survey of U.S. travelers in 2023 found that 38% of millennials and Gen Zers said they prefer traditional travel agents to sort out their trips. There are reports of High Street travel agents in the UK opening new physical storefronts, as are several travel agencies in Singapore, for example.

But Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel thinks that growth will fade fast and that AI will accelerate a decline in traditional travel agents.

“But the truth is the human travel agent has been a declining population for a very long time,” Fogel said on the Decoder podcast that came out Monday. “And, I’ll tell you, the things we are working on right now in AI and things of that nature, I suspect it’s going to continue to decline.”

Fogel, of course, has skin in the game. His company competes with offline travel agents, and several Booking Holdings brands, including, Priceline, Booking.com, and Kayak have launched a variety of generative AI products, including trip-planners.

All of these virtual agents, regardless of the company, have significant flaws, but these are early days.

Fogel said the position of traditional travel agents will continue to be reduced “as we create the virtual travel agents and as we use all the skills we have in AI, all the new things that are coming out, particularly in generative AI, and try to recreate what was, once upon a time, where the only way you could do travel was speaking to a human being.”

What About the Travel Agent Who Knows the Hotel Concierge?

The podcast host asked Fogel whether traditional travel agents, who may have ties and personal connections with a hotel concierge, may have an edge over websites like Booking.com?

“We are doing it too with our best customers,” Fogel said, in trying to offer upgraded services. “Don’t forget, an airline or hotel cares a lot more about the volume we provide to them than any single agent. We did $151 billion of travel last year. That’s a heck of a lot of travel. We have a lot of relationships.”

He said Booking Holdings has to figure out how to differentiate services for its top customers.

“The issue for us is how do we distinguish,” Fogel said. “Does someone who does more business with us, do we give them a higher level of service? Do we separate out and categorize customers? All businesses are always looking out trying to take care of their best customers in a better way.”

ASTA Compares Online Travel Agencies to Vending Machines

Asked about Fogel’s comments on the supposed decline of traditional travel agents, Zane Kerby, CEO of the American Society of Travel Advisors, told Skift he applauds Booking.com and Expedia for their utility as a place to compare prices and schedules across brands.

But Kerby asked whether Fogel is planning to alert customers that its new AI travel agents are programmed to tilt results toward destinations and suppliers “that are paying Booking.com for preferential placement?”

“Just as I don’t buy dinner from a vending machine, I don’t buy something as important as travel from a low cost/low service provider,” Kerby said via email. “The customer service travel advisors provide cannot be replicated by AI. The trust that travel advisors build with their customers is authentic and it’s what we stake our reputation on.”

Kerby added that some customers will always “prefer to work with a human travel advisor, always.”

The ASTA CEO said a quote from Priceline.com founder Jay Walker is relevant: “You don’t need a human until you need one.”

Informal Skift Survey

We asked a few Skift staffers who are Gen Zers or millennials whether they had used a traditional travel agent to plan recent trips, and got a mixed response.

Elsa Verzijl, a Skifter based in Manchester, England, was quick to say no. “I can confirm this GenZ has never ever used a travel agent :) What do they do anyway?” Verzijl asked.

However, another Skift employee, millennial Farheem Aziz, based in Brooklyn, New York, had a positive experience using a travel agent for a trip to Europe. “She was able to help us get great deals on hotels and flights (Greece and France), but there were a few travel mishaps. For example, she made a mistake with our car rental and by the time we went to go pick up our rental it was closed. But to make it up, she comp’d our hotel in Paris, which was great, so overall we had a great experience with her.”

Aziz said this was her first experience using a travel agent. “We moved around a lot in Greece and France so she was a huge help in helping us stay organized, especially because people in our friend group had different requirements (leaving from different cities, preferred different departure/arrival times),” Aziz said.

And the travel agent did one thing that Fogel’s Booking.com, Priceline or Agoda would probably rarely be able to do: The travel agent, Aziz said, had a friend’s room decorated to celebrate a birthday and arranged for a cake.

Another millennial Skifter, Alison McCarthy, based in Brooklyn, said she’s never considered using a travel agent “since I enjoy planning trips and am skeptical of how ‘personalized’ they could make it.”

McCarthy, though, said she might think about using a travel agent if she takes her young daughter to Disney.

“I’ve heard they’re super helpful for that experience and I’m not as worried about the personalized recommendations as I would be going to a new city or country,” McCarthy said.

AJ Blanchet, another millennial Skifter, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, likewise has never used a travel advisor and expressed similar feelings about the fun of do-it-yourself trip planning. 

“By the time I started booking my own flights (around 2008) it’s always felt more convenient (and fun!) to book my flight, lodging, and activities (like restaurants, show tickets, excursions) on my own,” Blanchet said.

Travel Agents Using AI

Like ASTA, Fora Travel sees the online travel agency approach as lacking. 

“Once again, the OTAs are predicting the decline and fall of the travel agency industry,” Fora Travel co-founder Evan Frank said via email. “It’s not a new story. In contrast, we’ve onboarded more than 5,000 active advisors since our launch three years ago, the vast majority of whom are brand new to the industry.

Frank said Fora’s travel advisers use AI and tech for effiencies “while leveraging relationships and general human understanding to provide travelers with curation, expertise, and property-level benefits that are notably absent from the standard OTA approach.”

Note: This story was updated to include comments from Fora Travel.