Research finds almost 50% of travel companies are prioritising Generative AI for 2025, despite having concerns about the technology.

Travel tech company Amadeus has launched a study on Generative AI that reveals 46% of travel companies feel it is a top priority for 2025.

In the Asia-Pacific region, 61% of companies said Gen AI was a top priority for next year – the highest of all the regions. This suggests the area could be leading the way on implementing the tech into travel.

The research also highlights the challenges around Gen AI that are causing concern for the travel sector, including skill shortages, lack of expertise and the return on investment in the tech.

The Amadeus report Navigating the Future: How Generative Artificial Intelligence is transforming the travel industry surveyed more than 300 experts from across the travel industry. Mercury Analytics used AI to analyse the survey data and open-ended questions from the survey respondents, who were based across ten markets: Canada, Italy, the UK, France, Germany, India, Australia, China, Japan and the US.

More than half of the travel leaders surveyed (51%) say Generative AI already has a significant presence in the travel industry in their country. A further 36% expect this presence to emerge over the next year, while 11% expect it will take one-to-two years. Just 2% of travel technology leaders think it will take three or more years for Generative AI to have a significant presence on the travel sector where they are.

Today, 41% of travel companies say they have the budget and resources in place to implement Generative AI, while 87% are open to working with a third-party vendor to develop Gen AI-powered applications.

Despite the support for the roll-out of Generative AI in the travel sector, the Amadeus report finds several challenges are emerging. When respondents were asked what – if anything – was slowing the adoption of the technology in the travel industry, 35% said data security. Other issues identified were lack of Generative AI expertise and training (34%); data quality and inadequate technological infrastructure (33%), concerns about the return-on-investment, lacks of use cases, or difficulty in estimating value (30%) and difficulty in connecting with partners or vendors (29%).

The study also explored how Generative AI is currently being used across the travel sector. Leading the way as the most common use case is digital assistance for travellers during booking (53%). This is followed by recommendations for activities or venues (48%), content generation (47%), helping staff to better serve customers (45%), and collecting and condensing post-travel feedback (45%).

Finally, in terms of what successful deployment of Generative AI would look like in the travel industry, respondents said they were looking for – in ranked order – return on investment, customer satisfaction, efficiency and productivity improvements, performance metrics (accuracy, precision and relevance) and increases in key performance indicators.

Sylvain Roy, chief technology officer at Amadeus, said: “[Generative AI] has the potential to transform every facet of the travel ecosystem, significantly enhancing the passenger experience at every step of the journey.

“While the technology will be a key focus for the next year, questions are rightly being asked whether Generative AI will deliver sufficient returns on investment, while talent shortages are also coming under the spotlight. It is crucial that we use this new technology responsibly, including ensuring data security, privacy, and content reliability. It is time for Generative AI to prove it can live up to the hype.”

As well as Gen AI, other technologies identified as top priority for 2025 are data management (38%), cloud architecture (36%), non-Generative AI IT infrastructure (34%) and biometric technology (23%).

by Rose Dykins | GLOBETRENDER