Travel advisors handle some of the most personal information in any service business: passport numbers, birthdays, home addresses, family situations, medical needs, spending patterns. So when an advisor tells me they're nervous about putting client details into an AI, I tell them they're right to be, and then I show them the setting that changes the conversation.
“We don't want to share any data with them.”
The 30-second move: opt out of training
Major AI tools let you decide whether your conversations get used to train their models. But you have to flip the switch yourself, and almost nobody does it before they start typing. It takes about thirty seconds, and I want it to be the very first thing you do, before your first prompt. It's Step 02 of my Travel AI Kit because everything else you build sits on top of it.
How it works
Set it up in this order
- 1
Turn off training
thirty seconds, once
- 2
Set your voice
custom instructions
- 3
Connect your tools
inbox, calendar, files
- 4
A safe foundation
Claire's own numbers
How long each setup step actually takes
30 seconds, before your first prompt
a few clicks each
The step that protects your client data is the fastest one in the whole setup, and almost nobody does it first.
Source: Claire B. Soares, from her own travel business and live trainings.
The order matters: privacy, voice, then connections
- Privacy first. Flip the training toggle before anything touches the box. Thirty seconds, once.
- Voice second. Set your custom instructions so the AI knows who you are and how you work.
- Connections last. Connect your inbox, calendar and files only after that foundation is set, because connected tools inherit the privacy settings you chose on day one.
Sensible rules that still apply
The toggle isn't a license to stop thinking. Keep the habits you'd expect of any professional handling client data: don't paste full payment card numbers anywhere they don't belong, share the details a task actually needs rather than a client's whole file, and treat AI conversations with the same discretion as your inbox. Privacy is a setup plus a standard. One setting won't cover it.
Set up once, benefit forever
The advisors who get this right only do it once. The free Travel AI Kit walks you through the whole sequence in one afternoon: the privacy step, my custom instructions word for word, and the connectors. Do the boring part first, and you'll stop worrying about every prompt you paste after that.
A note before you try this
Before you paste anything real, open your settings and check that the training toggle is off. Then test with a made-up client first, so you can see how the AI handles the details before a real passport number ever goes near it. Share only what the task needs, not the whole client file.
Set it up with me
I walk through this exact order in my free AI Masterclass, privacy first. Come set up your foundation with me, and every prompt after that gets easier.
Common Questions
Is it safe to put client information into AI?
It's safe once you've turned off model training in your AI tool's privacy settings, which takes about thirty seconds, and once you keep genuinely sensitive identifiers such as full payment card numbers out of any chat.
What is the first thing a travel advisor should do when setting up AI?
Opt out of model training before typing a single prompt. Everything else in the setup, including connected inboxes and files, inherits the privacy posture you configure on day one.
Do I need a paid AI plan to be private?
No. The training opt-out is available on free tiers of the major tools. Paid plans buy you more capability. The privacy toggle comes free.
Written By
Claire B. Soares
Claire B. Soares is the founder of Travel AI University, a 6x Condé Nast Traveler Top Travel Specialist, and a Certified AI Consultant with a B.S. in Computer Science. A top 10% enterprise sales executive, she sold $3.4B+ in enterprise software to Google, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing, the federal government, and the DoD, then built $16M+ in leisure travel sales.
About Claire
