AI Tourism Innovator Weekly Digest #37: Actionable AI Insights for Travel Tech & Tourism Brands

Hey Travel-Tech & Tourism Pros,

1.MakeMyTrip + Google Cloud Upgrade Myra with Gemini & Vertex AI

Source & Date: Times of India - Oct 10, 2025

What’s happening:

MakeMyTrip announced they’re revamping their AI assistant, Myra, using Google Cloud’s Gemini and Vertex AI capabilities. The enhanced Myra now supports multimodal input (images, maps) and better vernacular handling for Indian languages.

Why it matters:

Assistants are evolving beyond text; they’ll understand what travelers show (photos, map snippets). If your assistant is still text-only, you’ll lag.

Actionable insight:

Add an image/map upload feature to your chat flow. Route that input through a vision+LLM pipeline. Log 50 test queries like “Which hotel is this?” and measure accuracy.

💡 Prompt: “Given a map screenshot + user location, return 3 nearby hotel suggestions with one-line rationale and booking link.”

2. Collab-REC: Multi-Agent Tourism Recommendations Framework

Source & Date: ArXiv - Aug 20, 2025

What’s happening:

Researchers launched Collab-REC, a system where three agents (Personalization, Popularity, Sustainability) propose recommendations. A moderator fuses outputs to maintain diversity without losing relevance.

Why it matters:

This approach surfaces offbeat, sustainable options, avoiding always recommending the same popular destinations. Useful for destinations and marketplaces aiming to reduce crowding.

Actionable insight:

Prototype a 3-agent recommendation model for your region: personalize for niche tastes, add popular hits, and include sustainable/low-impact picks. Measure engagement vs single-agent baselines.

💡 Prompt: “Produce 5 curated itineraries from Collab-REC style: 2 popular picks, 2 eco/local picks, 1 hidden gem, with justifications.”

3. TakeUp Releases “AI Hospitality Revolution 2025” Report

Source & Date: TakeUp press - Oct 1, 2025

What’s happening:

TakeUp surveyed 200 independent hotel operators: 74.5% report positive ROI using AI. Guest messaging was the top adoption. Many saw benefits in <6 months.

Why it matters:

Independent hotels aren’t experimenting—they’re deploying. This proves scale isn’t a barrier; the barrier is strategy, training, and integration.

Actionable insight:

Pull your own AI ROI report: pick 2 use cases (messaging, upsell, housekeeping), measure baseline vs post-AI over 30 days, and share results internally.

💡 Prompt: “Design an AI ROI dashboard: baseline, delta, cost, lift, and adoption rate across 2 use cases for 30 days.”

4. TraveLLaMA: Multimodal Travel Assistant Models Land

Source & Date: ArXiv - Apr 23, 2025

What’s happening:

TraveLLaMA, a vision+language model fine-tuned for travel and urban scenes, outperforms general models by 6.5–9.4% in contextual travel tasks and map‐image reasoning.

Why it matters:

If you need your assistant to interpret street photos, maps, or local scenes, TraveLLaMA provides a performance boost over generic models.

Actionable insight:

Swap your vision model to TraveLLaMA for map/photo tasks; run side-by-side tests. Log error rates, hallucination spots, and user frustration.

💡 Prompt: “Upload a street photo + location. Ask: what landmarks are here, what hotels are nearby, opening hours, directions. Return structured response.”

5. ChatGPT “Perfect Holiday” Hallucinations Raise Risks

Source & Date: The Times - Oct 11, 2025

What’s happening:

Several travelers followed AI-generated itineraries only to discover the places didn’t exist (e.g., fictional towns, closed attractions). The tool “hallucinates” convincingly.

Why it matters:

Trust is fragile. Even if agents can plan, you need verification, fallback rules, or validation layers to catch hallucinations before they ruin trips.

Actionable insight:

Add sanity checks: verify location existence, check business operating hours, and cross-match with official APIs before sending to users.

💡 Prompt: “Given a proposed itinerary, filter out any place not found in OpenStreetMap / Google Places and flag potential hallucinations with warnings.”

6. ABTA: 18% of Young UK Adults Design Holidays Using AI

Source & Date: The Guardian - Oct 7, 2025

What’s happening:

ABTA’s study found 18% of UK adults aged 25–34 now use AI tools like ChatGPT to plan holidays. Among older generations, uptake remains <3%.

Why it matters:

Your primary future customers are AI-first planners. If your content can’t surface cleanly via AI prompts, you’re invisible to that demographic.

Actionable insight:

Reframe your top 10 product descriptions as “AI prompts + tags.” E.g., “family-friendly beach escape under €300” + tags (kids, beach, relaxation).

💡 Prompt: “Rewrite 10 experiences with 5 AI-friendly tags (vibe, season, persona, duration, price) plus a one-line pitch AI agents can use.”

Why You’re Receiving This Digest

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That said, I see this as a great opportunity for all of us to connect, share ideas, and capitalize on these exciting changes in tourism. 

After all, more minds are better than one! 🙌

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Thanks for reading and innovating with me!

Kind regards, Ivan Ivanovic - AI Tourism Innovator | Visit my website