54% of Travelers Distrust Your AI Recommendations — Now What? 

This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.

More than half of travelers distrust AI-generated travel recommendations, creating a significant credibility gap as travel brands invest more heavily in AI-powered personalization. While half of travelers are comfortable using AI to compare hotels, flights, and travel packages, many remain unconvinced that AI can deliver recommendations that reflect their individual needs.

For CRM and loyalty leaders at hotel brands and airlines that are already investing in AI-driven personalization, this gap points to broader conversion and retention problems. The question is no longer whether to add AI to the customer journey, but whether the customer intelligence behind those experiences is strong enough to earn confidence at the moments that matter.

According to Wunderkind’s “The Future of Travel” report, only 24% of travelers say they trust AI-generated travel recommendations. At the same time, 43% report feeling overwhelmed by the growing presence of AI across digital experiences.

“Travelers aren’t rejecting AI,” said Allen Choate, senior director, business development at Wunderkind. “They’re rejecting experiences that feel generic or disconnected from their intent. The opportunity for brands isn’t simply to introduce more AI into the customer journey, but to ensure every recommendation is grounded in a genuine understanding of the traveler. Trust is earned when AI consistently helps people make better decisions, not just faster ones.”

The findings suggest that AI adoption and AI trust are advancing at different speeds. Brands that race to deploy visible AI features without improving relevance, accuracy, and channel orchestration may widen that gap rather than close it. The report explores how identity, behavioral intelligence, and adaptive decisioning can help travel brands use AI less as a novelty and more as an intelligence layer that makes customer experiences feel simpler, more timely, and more human.

It also examines how travelers discover, plan, book, and manage travel in an increasingly AI-driven world. Drawing on consumer survey data, it explores AI adoption, trust, personalization, booking behavior, channel preferences, and the continued importance of human support throughout the travel journey.

“The next phase of AI in travel won’t be defined by who has the flashiest chatbot. It will be defined by who can combine identity, behavioral signals, and human context to deliver experiences that feel genuinely useful,” Choate said. “The travel brands that succeed will be the ones using AI to remove friction, respect customer preferences, and strengthen long-term relationships rather than simply automate interactions.”

In this guide, you’ll find: 

• Which travel planning tasks consumers are most comfortable delegating to AI, and where they draw the line
• Why email still dominates traveler attention, with 39% saying it is the channel most likely to reach them, more than three times any other channel
• Where travelers reject automation entirely, including billing issues, cancellations, disruptions, and complex bookings where human support remains essential
• Why 40% of travelers are uncomfortable sharing personal data, and why Millennials, despite being heavy digital users, are the most resistant
• How travel discovery is fragmenting across search, social, creators, brand websites, and AI assistants
• Why Gen Z may offer the clearest preview of AI’s future in travel, with higher trust, more comfort sharing data, and rising expectations for accurate, real-time information
• Why owned channels remain resilient even as the research and planning journey becomes longer and more fragmented
• Why direct bookings still matter in a multi-platform world, with 43% of travelers completing bookings directly through a travel brand’s website or app

This sponsored content was created collaboratively by Wunderkind and Skift Studio.