Society. "A quarter could eventually disappear": Tourism professionals face AI

Will travel professionals soon be forced to pack their bags? "AI won't kill tourist guides," says Philippe Gloaguen, director of Routard . "THE" travel bible with 160 destinations explored over the past half century by some sixty explorer-investigators.

"What makes us strong is our opinion, subjective but always sincere. This creates credibility with the reader." And the professional praises the "side steps and secret places" highlighted in his collection. "It's not the same vision of tourism," he summarizes, making a comparison with "algorithms based on the lowest common denominator, largely influenced by American preferences."

“Listening, experience and emotion”

"Listening, experience, and emotion will never replace a mechanical response," adds Stéphane Villain, president of ADN Tourisme. His organization oversees 1,150 tourist offices as well as services within the Regions and Departments (representing 13,000 jobs).

"The advantage of humans over AI in our tourist offices is our perfect knowledge of the region and our ability to work daily with its service providers (restaurant owners, accommodation providers, cultural and heritage stakeholders)."

This tourism professional and mayor of Châtelaillon-Plage (Charente-Maritime) recognizes, however, that AI has become an essential tool for the industry because it is "available 24 hours a day, capable of making instant translations and fairly precise recommendations." Nevertheless, he believes, the tourist office "will remain a privileged place of reception and information."

Less optimistic, Didier Arino, director of the Protourisme consultancy firm, anticipates, on the contrary, a "less usefulness of the main information mission" of this ecosystem. In publishing, "certain collections, whose opinion is more neutral and factual than ours, suffer more," underlines the head of Routard .

The fear of travel agencies

He claims to sell two million copies each year "thanks to a loyal customer base." But he admits: "If Le Routard started now with AI, I'm not sure we would do well."

For travel agencies, the outlook isn't bright, according to Didier Arino. "A quarter could eventually disappear. AI risks weakening those that are too general, selling extremely banal products. The only agencies that will survive will be those that offer services at very attractive prices that individuals won't be able to obtain because they won't have the same negotiating room as tour operators and those hyper-specialized in a single destination or in highly specialized support."

Grab the tool

Arno Pons, general delegate of the Digital New Deal think tank for digital sovereignty, explains: "With Booking, hoteliers have lost the connection with the customer. "Agentic" AI goes beyond paid search because it knows how to produce actions - a payment, for example.

This is why it will amplify the phenomenon of disintermediation that has been eating away at all the value of the tourism industry for ten years." Before warning: "Either we let generative AI deploy its full potential among players already in a monopoly situation, and this is potentially deadly, or we seize this tool to create an AI of the same level as those of the tech giants." His structure is pushing the Gen4Travel project, an agentic AI Made in France for travel.