Traveler AI Adoption Hits 54% as Destination Marketers Lag

Travelers moved first

The travel industry has a familiar habit of reacting late to how people actually plan trips, and AI looks like the newest example. A study released August 20 by the AI trip-planning company Mindtrip, together with Sabre, Sojern and MMGY Travel Intelligence, found that 54% of U.S. leisure travelers have already used AI to plan a trip and 75% expect to use it for future travel.12 The supply side looks far less ready. Only 22% of destination marketing organizations (DMOs) offer AI trip-planning tools on their websites, and just 26% have a documented AI strategy.1214

The report places the industry about one and a half adoption phases behind consumers, which it estimates at roughly two years.13 DMO leaders appear to agree that this matters. Seventy-two percent said organizations that fail to adopt AI in the next two years risk becoming irrelevant in destination discovery.12 Writing about the findings, a Forbes contributor described the issue as one of relevance as much as technology. If AI becomes the main way people start planning, brands that are missing from AI answers could lose the discovery stage to competitors or to sources they cannot control.11

The survey, fielded in April 2026, covered 1,006 U.S. adults who had taken or planned an overnight leisure trip, plus 103 DMO leaders and practitioners.1213

Adoption is concentrated in practical tasks

The most useful part of the data is what people actually do with AI. Sixty percent of travelers who use it research attractions, restaurants and transportation. Fifty-six percent compare prices, and 43% build itineraries and organize trip details.12 These are tasks people do close to making a decision. Mindtrip's chief marketing officer, Michelle Denogean, said use has gone beyond casual experimentation and is now built into how many people plan.11

Younger travelers are leading. Sixty-nine percent of Millennials and 63% of Gen Z travelers say they use AI assistants as often as social platforms for trip planning.11 eMarketer's reading of the same data shows how close AI now is to older sources of ideas. Thirty percent of travelers turn to AI when choosing where to go, ahead of travel blogs at 27%, level with online communities and just behind social media at 32%.15

The study also suggests a gap between what travelers value and what DMOs plan to build. Only 20% of DMO leaders rank itinerary building as a high-value capability, even though it is one of the most common ways travelers use AI.12 In this reading, destinations are still investing mainly in inspiration while travelers want help getting things done.

The adoption numbers disagree, a lot

The 75% headline needs context. Surveys released this year put traveler AI adoption at very different levels, depending on who was asked and how the question was worded.

Deloitte's 2026 summer travel research found that 25% of travelers used generative AI for trip planning, up from 15% a year earlier.2 Allianz Partners, polling 2,001 U.S. adults with Ipsos in March and April, put the figure at 37% of summer travelers.3 IMG's annual outlook found 33% likely to use tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Claude in 2026.7 Global Rescue reported that 36% expected to use AI in some way, while another 36% said they would not use it at all.10

Other surveys point much higher. Greetwell's August survey of 1,000 U.S. leisure travelers found 53% had used or tried AI for travel, which closely matches Mindtrip's 54%.2 An Amadeus study found 74% of U.S. travelers had used AI while planning to identify hotels, routes or ground transport.19 A global Klook survey of 11,000 users put reliance on AI travel planners at 91%.1 Expedia Group's YouGov research found that just 8% of travelers rely on platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini when planning a trip, compared with 59% who use search engines.16

The best way to read these numbers is not to pick a winner. Broad questions such as "have you ever used AI for travel" produce majorities. Narrower questions about relying on a chatbot as a main planning tool produce small minorities. The direction is still clear. In 2024, Matador Network found that about 23% of travelers had used AI for travel,4 and nearly every 2026 survey reports a higher figure. It is also worth noting that the study behind the "brands are lagging" message was commissioned partly by a company that sells AI trip planners to destinations. That does not make the findings wrong, but it explains why the conclusion stresses urgency.

Planning yes, booking not yet

Across the coverage, the strongest point of agreement is that consumers draw a firm line between asking AI for advice and letting it spend money. In the Mindtrip study, just over a third of travelers said they were comfortable with AI taking part in booking, and comfort rose when human support was available.12 eMarketer put that figure at 38%, rising to 63% among Millennials.15

Other research is more cautious. In Expedia's study, 66% of respondents said they would not trust AI to buy or book anything for them. Their main worries were loss of control, data privacy and misuse of personal data.16 Amadeus found that 65% of travelers were interested in completing a booking inside an AI assistant, but only 20% would let an AI tool spend within a set budget without further approval.19 Nearly nine in ten cross-check AI suggestions before booking, and only 11% rely on AI recommendations alone.19 Skift cited a figure of just 2% of leisure travelers willing to let AI book on their behalf, and questioned the industry's heavy spending on autonomous booking agents.18

Accenture's survey of more than 25,000 consumers shows the same pattern in other categories. Eighty-five percent are open to working with AI, but only 9% would let it make purchases for them.20 Taken together, travelers are adopting AI quickly as a research assistant and slowly as an agent that acts for them.

Accuracy is the weak point

Accuracy problems help explain that caution. Among Greetwell respondents who had used AI for travel, 55% had received at least one recommendation that was wrong, unavailable or closed. Sixteen percent had been pointed to a place or activity that did not exist.2 Travelers who had a bad experience were more than four times as likely to say their trust had dropped. Greetwell notes that this is a correlation and does not prove the bad experience caused the drop.2 Booking.com research cited by CNBC found that 91% of respondents still have concerns about AI and only 35% fully trust what it produces.1

One example shows the cost. MMGY chief executive Katie Briscoe said an early AI search tool once gave her the wrong opening hours for a theme park, and she lost about $500 on nonrefundable tickets.11 When things go wrong, people still want a human. In Greetwell's survey, 65% wanted a real person to handle a weather-related cancellation, and only 5% preferred a chatbot.2

Where the opening really is

This is where the "lagging brands" argument becomes most convincing, though not in the way the headline number suggests. Destinations do not mainly need to rush out chatbots. Their advantage is trusted information. In the Mindtrip study, 55% of travelers who already use AI said they would trust AI on a destination website more than general-purpose tools.11 Among all respondents, the figure was 34%.13 Sixty-three percent said they would use an AI planner on a destination's site, and 25% said they are less likely to use a site without AI features.12

There is also pressure on traffic. Denogean said 70% of destinations report falling organic search traffic.11 The report argues that being found now depends on whether AI systems can locate a destination's information, trust it and recommend it, a practice it calls answer engine optimization.13 The obstacles are practical: 47% of DMOs cite staff bandwidth as a barrier.13

The big platforms are already moving. Priceline added agent features to its Penny assistant, and Marriott launched Ask Bonvoy for conversational hotel search.20 Accenture warns that more than a third of brand-loyal travelers would let an AI agent switch them away from their favorite brands for a better fit.20

The overall picture is that consumer adoption is real and growing, even if the 75% figure is at the high end of the range. The more lasting gap is not between eager travelers and slow brands. It is between how widely people use AI and how much they trust it. Brands that close the trust gap with accurate, current, authoritative information will likely benefit from wider adoption. Brands that only add a chatbot risk adding one more source travelers feel they have to double-check.