The news. ABTA's latest Holiday Habits report, as reported by Hotel News Resource, finds that 14% of UK adults now use AI tools for holiday inspiration, up from 8% a year earlier and 4% the year before that. In the same report, 38% of respondents booked their overseas holidays through a travel professional in the past 12 months, up from 34% the previous year. The survey used a nationally representative sample of more than 2,080 UK adults.
Two lines going up at once
The easy headline is that AI is replacing the travel agent. This report says something more useful. AI is taking a bigger share of the dreaming, and travel professionals are taking a bigger share of the booking, in the same survey.
The younger numbers are sharper. Among 25 to 34 year olds, 29% use AI for holiday ideas, up 11 percentage points on the previous year. Add the people who read AI-generated summaries inside their internet searches, and the total reaches 24%, the same share that turns to social media for inspiration.
The old sources have not gone anywhere. Family and friends still lead at 42%. As a source of ideas, travel agents and tour operators held at 21%, the same as the year before. Hotel News Resource puts the overall picture plainly: AI "has not replaced traditional sources."
What people pay a professional for
The most useful line for an agency owner is the reasons people gave for booking with a travel professional: ease of booking (60%), saving time (45%) and value for money (44%). Not one of them is about having the idea. All three are about the booking itself.
Why it matters for the agency
More than 44,700 customers passed through the desks I ran. The idea for a trip could come from anywhere: a cousin, a brochure, a video. What the desk sold was the part after the idea, the right room at the right price in a booking that held.
This is UK data, and I would not copy its percentages onto Cairo or Kuwait. The direction is still worth watching. If AI keeps writing more of the first draft of a holiday, the agency's opening is the second draft, the version that can actually be booked. An agency that argues with the chatbot over ideas has picked the wrong argument. One that tells clients "bring me what the AI gave you" is standing where these numbers point.
When a client walks in with a plan an AI wrote, does your desk treat it as a rival or as a brief?