The future of travel is here, and it's powered by robots, AI, and 'smart tourism'. Imagine checking into a hotel room using your mobile phone from the backseat of a taxi, with a robot porter delivering your luggage and an AI assistant ready to cater to your every need. This is not a scene from a sci-fi film; it's the reality of travel in China in 2025, as described by Mengni Fu, a PhD candidate at Griffith University. According to consulting firm McKinsey and Co., this is the future of travel, where technology eliminates typical travel pain points and human interactions are authentic and meaningful.
Robotics, AI, and service automation are revolutionizing the hospitality and tourism industry, just as they are transforming many aspects of our lives. More people are relying on AI chatbots built on large language models, such as ChatGPT or Trip Advisor's 'my trips', to plan their holidays. Popular destinations are employing 'smart tourism' to manage tourist flow, and companies offering simultaneous translation earbuds are heralding the end of language barriers.
But will new technology streamline services and make travel stress-free, or will it fundamentally change tourism and tourist destinations? The Instagram account of Guide to Lofoten, a Norwegian tour company, sparked a debate when it posted about ChatGPT's impact on small local businesses. The owners claim they're losing income and visibility as fewer people visit their website, instead relying on ChatGPT for information. This highlights the concern that AI might 'kill' local businesses.
Dr. Marianna Sigala, a professor of marketing and director of the International Hotel School at the University of Newcastle, agrees that people are turning to generative AI for holiday planning. She compares it to the disruptive power of the steam engine or Booking.com's impact on online travel in the early 2000s, where consumers gained access to the internet and began booking their own travel. This shift is described as the 'hyper-personalization' of travel, with AI creating highly individualized itineraries that will change how tourists travel.
Professor Adrien Palmer argues that technology has long fueled over-tourism, and it's too early to determine AI's impact. However, AI-planned itineraries could potentially steer tourists away from over-tourism hotspots, or AI-enhanced virtual reality might eliminate the need to travel at all. The Vatican's 'digital twin' of St. Peter's Basilica, created with AI, is an example of this.
The ability to find a 'road less traveled' in the future may depend on how well you can prompt an AI assistant. Marketing researcher Joseph Mellors suggests that travelers can use AI as a tool for discovery rather than congestion by asking sharper questions and seeking local voices. However, AI-generated content can sometimes be misleading, as demonstrated by the case of two tourists who were about to hike into a non-existent canyon served to them by AI.
In popular tourist destinations, AI technology is transforming how tourist flows are managed. 'Smart cities' use big data to understand people flow and manage visitor numbers. AI helps analyze mass amounts of data faster and in real-time, and destination apps suggest different routes, attractions, and visit times to tourists. But will these technological advances remove the surprises that make tourism unique? Sigala remains optimistic, drawing on her own travel experiences.
Despite the rapid integration of AI, robotics, and automation in hospitality and tourism, Mengni Fu believes that service with a human smile will still be important. Her PhD research explores how Gen Z consumers and workers in China and Australia feel about technological innovation in the sector. The overwhelming preference is for new technologies to replace certain tasks rather than workers, but job security concerns persist, especially in Australia. Chinese respondents, more accustomed to technology, still opt for places and services where humans collaborate with technology, valuing the 'human warmness' and the need to talk with humans.
