A family in Pune planning a December break used to open a few OTA apps, scroll long lists of hotels and ask friends on WhatsApp. Now many start by typing the whole trip into an AI tool and getting back a short plan with a few hotels named. This guide looks at what the data says, what travellers are asking, and what it means for an independent hotel.
How did trip planning work before AI tools?
Before AI tools, most trip planning meant searching, filtering and reading. A traveller picked a destination from friends, social media or past trips, searched Google, then scrolled OTA lists sorted by price or rating and read reviews until a few hotels stood out.
That process favoured hotels that ranked well on OTAs: good photos, strong review scores and competitive prices on the platform. A hotel deep in the list could still be found by someone patient enough to scroll.
How many Indian travellers use AI to plan trips?
About a third already do, by one recent measure. In Agoda’s 2026 Travel Outlook, released in May 2026, 33% of Indian travellers said they already use AI for travel planning, and 68% said they’re likely to use it for their next trip.[1]
| What Indian travellers use AI for (Agoda, 2026) | Share |
|---|---|
| Recommendations for local attractions and activities | 38% |
| Personalised itineraries | 37% |
| Destination suggestions | 29% |
| Dining recommendations | 23% |
| Budget management | 22% |
Source: Agoda 2026 Travel Outlook press release, 8 May 2026.[1]
The same May 2026 release says 53% of respondents clearly trust AI-generated recommendations, and 88% either trust them or feel neutral.[1] Agoda’s release doesn’t give the sample size or survey dates, so read these as one survey’s snapshot, not a national statistic.
Globally, the pattern is similar: interest in AI for planning is high, but people still like to book for themselves. A Skift Research and McKinsey report, covered in September 2026, found 34% of travellers use AI during research, while only 16% had used an AI tool to complete a booking and 74% prefer to finalise bookings personally.[2]
What do travellers ask AI tools?
They ask whole questions, often with constraints, instead of typing two or three keywords. These are examples of the kind of questions travellers type, not real logs:
- “Plan a 4-day trip to Udaipur in December for a couple, mid-range budget, with one day for a lake boat ride.”
- “Quiet hill station within 6 hours of Delhi by car, good for a family with a toddler, under ₹8,000 a night.”
- “Compare Goa and Gokarna for a long weekend in February for four friends.”
- “उदयपुर में झील के पास अच्छे होटल बताओ, बजट ₹6,000 तक” (suggest good hotels near the lake in Udaipur, budget up to ₹6,000).
Language support is widening the audience. Google’s AI Mode launched in English in India, added Hindi in September 2025,[3] and added seven more Indian languages (Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu) in October 2025.[4] MakeMyTrip’s AI assistant, Myra, launched its trip planning upgrade in beta in English and Hindi in August 2025.[10]
Where do AI tools get their answers?
AI tools build their answers from what’s published about a place and its hotels: websites, Google listings, OTA pages, reviews and articles.
- Google’s AI features draw on Google Search. Google says there are no special requirements to appear in them beyond the usual basics: pages it can crawl and index, with important content in text.[5]
- ChatGPT search surfaces websites found by OpenAI’s search crawler, and sites that block it won’t appear in ChatGPT search answers.[6]
- Perplexity surfaces and links websites in its results.[7]
So when someone asks for “a lake-view hotel near City Palace under ₹10,000”, the tool looks for hotels whose details clearly match: location, view, price range. A hotel that never says “lake view” anywhere is hard to recommend for that question, however good the view is. We explain this in detail in What is AEO for hotels?
What still happens on OTAs and Google?
Most booking still happens on OTAs and hotel websites, and AI tools are increasingly connected to them. The AI often does the shortlisting, then hands the traveller to a booking platform.
- In October 2025, OpenAI launched apps in ChatGPT with Booking.com and Expedia among the first partners, for logged-in users outside the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the UK.[8]
- In August 2026, Google started rolling out hotel booking in AI Mode in the US, in English. The hotel or booking platform remains the merchant of record.[9]
- OTAs are adding AI themselves. MakeMyTrip says Myra lets users go from a question to a confirmed booking in one conversation.[10]
For a hotel, that means two jobs. Be the hotel the AI names, and be easy to book wherever the traveller goes next: on an OTA, or on your own website.
Who is adopting AI trip planning fastest?
We haven’t found reliable published data that breaks down Indian AI trip planning by age, city or income. Agoda’s release gives national figures only.[1] What we can say from the sources above is that the tools are becoming available to more people, in more Indian languages, and inside the apps people already use for search and travel. Be wary of any precise claim about which group uses AI most unless it names its survey.
Is AI trip planning reliable?
Not completely, and the providers say so. Google’s help page for AI Mode notes that AI responses may include mistakes.[11] Travellers are right to check prices, availability and policies before they pay. For hotels, the practical point is that an AI tool can repeat outdated or wrong information about you if that’s what it finds online.
What this means for hotel owners
AI tools don’t replace the basics. They raise the cost of getting them wrong. Start here:
- Ask the questions yourself. Type the questions your guests would ask into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude, and note whether you’re named and whether the details are right.
- State your specifics in plain words. Location and distances, views, room types, what’s included, the kind of traveller you suit. Put them on your website as text, not only in photos.
- Make your details match everywhere. Name, address, phone, amenities and policies should be the same on Google, OTAs and your site.
- Earn reviews that mention what you’re good at. Ask every guest; never offer incentives.
- Make direct booking easy. When a traveller clicks through to your site, the booking should be as quick as on an OTA.
Our 15-point AI visibility checklist covers each step, and our guide on whether AI will replace OTAs looks at where booking is heading. To see how AI describes your hotel today, book a free AI visibility audit. If you’d like the work done for you, that’s what our AI Visibility Optimization service is for.