Travelers are already using artificial intelligence to discover destinations, compare options and build trips, but many destination marketing organizations are still treating AI as an emerging experiment. New research from Mindtrip, Sabre, Sojern and MMGY Travel Intelligence found that 54% of travelers have used AI for travel planning and 75% expect to use it on future trips, compared with just 22% of destination marketing organizations (DMOs) offering AI trip-planning capabilities on their websites.
The gap is becoming difficult for the travel industry to ignore.
The research, conducted in April 2026 among 1,006 U.S. adults and 103 DMO leaders and practitioners, suggests that generative AI is moving beyond experimentation and becoming part of the travel discovery process. Yet the organizations responsible for promoting destinations have not kept pace with traveler behavior. Only 26% of DMO respondents said their organization has a documented AI strategy.
AI trip planning is increasingly becoming a consumer-facing travel channel, allowing travelers to research destinations, compare options and construct itineraries through conversational interfaces rather than traditional search and destination websites.
That shift could fundamentally change the role of a destination marketing organization.
For decades, DMOs have focused on inspiration: showcasing attractions, events, restaurants, hotels and local experiences and persuading prospective visitors to put a destination on their shortlist. AI changes the equation because the traveler increasingly asks a system to synthesize that information into a personalized recommendation.
The research found that 40% of travelers have already discovered a destination through AI, while 29% have changed their travel plans because of an AI recommendation. Among Millennials, 69% say they use AI assistants as often as social media for trip planning; the figure is 63% among Gen Z travelers.
That puts pressure on destinations to become more than publishers of promotional content. They need to become reliable sources of structured, current and useful information that AI systems can understand and incorporate into recommendations.
Mindtrip is positioning itself directly around that transition. The travel technology company has been developing AI-powered discovery and planning experiences for travelers and destination organizations, including tools designed to help DMOs understand what travelers are asking AI systems and identify content gaps.
The new research suggests those capabilities are becoming more important as travelers move further down the planning funnel.
Travelers report using AI to research attractions, restaurants and transportation, compare prices, and organize trip details—not simply to brainstorm destinations. Yet only 20% of DMO leaders surveyed ranked itinerary building as a high-value capability.
That mismatch reveals a broader problem in travel technology: organizations may be optimizing for the way they have historically marketed destinations rather than the way consumers increasingly want to plan them.
Traditional travel websites are organized around navigation. AI travel interfaces are organized around intent.
A traveler might once have searched for “things to do in Barcelona” and browsed several pages. An AI assistant can instead be asked to build a four-day Barcelona itinerary for a family arriving Thursday, staying near a particular neighborhood and interested in architecture and local food. The value is no longer simply having information available; it is having information that can be interpreted, combined and personalized.
This is also where the distinction between generative AI and agentic AI becomes important.
Generative AI can recommend a restaurant or construct an itinerary. Agentic AI can potentially take the next step by interacting with booking systems, changing reservations or coordinating multiple parts of a trip. McKinsey describes agentic AI as systems capable of making decisions, using external tools and taking actions with limited human oversight. Its travel research points to applications ranging from end-to-end itinerary creation to disruption management and rebooking.
Sabre has already been building toward that model. In February 2026, Sabre, PayPal and Mindtrip announced a partnership combining AI, payments, identity and travel infrastructure for an end-to-end agentic travel experience spanning discovery, planning, booking and trip management.
For DMOs, the implication is potentially profound.
If AI becomes the interface through which travelers discover and evaluate destinations, the DMO’s influence could shift from controlling a website experience to supplying authoritative information to a much wider network of AI interfaces.
That makes content quality, data structure, local expertise and digital authority strategic assets.
Sojern’s 2026 State of Destination Marketing report provides evidence that the transition is already underway. Based on research involving more than 350 DMOs worldwide, Sojern found that 51% were concerned about or actively preparing for AI-driven search disruption, while 31% expected their websites to become a source of truth for AI-generated answers. Two-thirds were already using AI for content creation.
The competitive landscape is consequently expanding beyond travel search and booking platforms.
Google remains a major discovery gateway, while Expedia Group, Booking.com, Airbnb, Tripadvisor and emerging AI travel platforms are competing for increasingly conversational traveler journeys. The difference is that AI can potentially collapse discovery, comparison and planning into a single interaction.
That raises a strategic question for destination organizations: if an AI assistant recommends three destinations to a traveler, what determines which destinations appear?
The answer may increasingly involve the quality and accessibility of the information AI systems can retrieve, the authority of the sources behind that information and the ability of destinations to provide current, machine-readable data.
There is a trust issue, too.
McKinsey found that travelers are increasingly comfortable using AI for travel planning, but remain more cautious when AI is given authority over higher-stakes decisions such as bookings or visa-related information. In its research, only 2% of respondents said they were currently willing to give an AI tool complete autonomy to make or modify travel bookings without human oversight.
That suggests the winning travel AI experience may not be the one that removes humans entirely. It may be the one that combines automation with transparency, clear choices and easy access to human assistance.
The Mindtrip research points to that same pattern: more than one-third of travelers are comfortable with AI-assisted booking, and comfort increases when human support remains available.
For enterprise travel and tourism teams, the message is therefore less about installing an AI chatbot and more about rebuilding the digital journey around AI-native discovery.
DMOs will need to connect inspiration with utility, make destination data easier for AI systems to consume, measure whether AI recommendations lead to actual travel activity and establish partnerships that connect discovery to booking.
The industry has already experienced a similar transition once. Online booking transformed travel by moving consumers from brochures and travel agents toward digital self-service. AI could represent the next interface shift—only this time, the search box itself may become conversational, personalized and increasingly capable of taking action.
The organizations that adapt early will not simply be better at using AI. They may become more visible in the places where future travelers increasingly make their decisions.
4. Market Landscape
AI is moving rapidly through the travel technology stack, from inspiration and itinerary creation to search, booking and disruption management.
The opportunity is being pursued by established travel platforms, cloud providers and specialized AI companies. Google is integrating generative AI into search and travel discovery, while Booking.com, Expedia Group, Tripadvisor and Airbnb are developing increasingly personalized digital experiences. Meanwhile, companies such as Mindtrip are building AI-native travel planning interfaces, while Sabre is developing infrastructure for agentic travel transactions.
The market is also moving from conversational AI toward agentic workflows. McKinsey estimates that AI adoption among major travel companies accelerated sharply between 2022 and 2024 and says agentic AI could reshape how travelers plan, purchase and manage trips.
For DMOs, the competitive issue is not simply whether to deploy an AI planner. It is whether destination information is sufficiently authoritative, structured and current to influence the AI systems increasingly mediating traveler decisions.
That creates a new category of destination technology: AI visibility and answer-engine optimization for tourism.
The most sophisticated organizations will likely combine AI planning experiences with structured destination data, content governance, measurement, booking connectivity and human support. The objective is to make AI useful without surrendering trust.
5. Top Insights
- 54% of travelers already use AI for trip planning, while only 22% of DMOs offer AI planning, exposing a widening readiness gap across destination technology.
- AI is influencing actual destination choices, with 40% of travelers discovering destinations through AI and 29% changing plans after receiving AI recommendations.
- Younger travelers are accelerating the shift, as 69% of Millennials and 63% of Gen Z use AI assistants as frequently as social media for planning.
- Destination marketing is moving beyond inspiration, requiring DMOs to provide authoritative data, itineraries, real-time information and AI-readable content throughout the travel journey.
- Agentic AI could connect planning with transactions, but trust, human support, booking controls and reliable travel data remain essential to broader adoption.
