Artificial intelligence (AI) will further affect travel booking habits, with half of consumers relying on ChatGPT and similar platforms, while the other half will continue to make bookings through specific brands, according to the leading tourism group TUI.
Speaking at the company’s financial results announcement for the year ended September 30, the Group CEO Sebastian Ebel confirmed that TUI sees AI as a “change factor.”
“It helps us enter new markets and new distribution channels and is a tool for reducing our costs,” he added.
Describing the company’s predictions about consumer behavior, he said: “We believe the market will be divided and the ‘TUI AI concierge agent’ will be in the middle. We’re seeing an increase in customers who book based on the brand – people who really trust brands and want to book with big brands – and they find our differentiated products, our well-placed products, and that’s our big advantage. On the other hand, we see that there are customers who [ask us] to create collaborations, optimize search and expand distribution to ChatGPT, TikTok, etc.”
According to him, the company sees “significant opportunities in collaboration with Large Language Models” and the group aims to reach a point where it “will not be dependent on Google alone.”
The content produced by TUI, he noted, will be reliable. “There are so many false elements on the network, but TUI is synonymous with reliable content, and that’s why we make great efforts in this area,” he said.
The group is developing the artificial intelligence functions of its application, he said, including voice-chat agents. “This has a significant impact and makes the application much stronger,” he said.
According to him, there are huge opportunities with artificial intelligence, which is why TUI is investing heavily in AI.
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