There are literally two types of advisors in our industry right now. There are travel advisors who are running AI, and there are those still doing it by hand. I said this on my live training this week, and I could feel the room recognize themselves — because everyone knows exactly which side of the line they're on.
The advisors running AI answer inquiries faster, draft proposals faster, and do their follow-ups faster. Which means they either close more business or work less — their choice. The advisors doing it by hand are sucked into the manual work: vendor emails, rebuilding itineraries, itinerary presentations, loading the same data into system after system. Same talent, same taste, same client list — completely different weeks.
The gap isn't what you think
Here's what makes me crazy: everyone says "use AI," but almost no one actually shows a travel professional how to do it. When someone tells me about a prompt that's a "game changer," I ask them one question: how did you implement that into your business, and what were the results? The silence tells you everything. Lots of people talk about AI. Very few have workflows actually running inside a travel business.
So the divide isn't between advisors who "get" technology and those who don't. It's between advisors who did a one-time setup and advisors who keep opening a blank chatbot, getting a generic answer, and concluding AI isn't ready. The setup is the whole game — and it takes about an hour.
Crossing the line
- Set up your AI properly once — account, privacy, and personalization, in that order.
- Build its brain: load your business context one time so you never re-explain yourself.
- Connect it to your inbox and calendar, where the actual work lives.
- Give it one real job — and let it do that job every single day.
That sequence is exactly what I teach — it's the same setup running my own travel company, and it's what the free Travel AI Kit walks you through step by step. Whichever side of the line you're on today, the crossing costs one focused afternoon. The staying behind costs you every week.
Written By
Claire B. Soares
6× Condé Nast Top Travel Specialist, Certified AI Consultant, and founder of Travel AI University. $3.4B+ in enterprise sales at Google, Microsoft, and IBM; $16M+ in luxury travel sales with Up in the Air Life.
About Claire
