Travelsavers and the Network of Entrepreneurs Selling Travel (NEST) surveyed their advisors in 2023 and found 24% weren’t using AI and didn’t want to. By 2024, that figure had dropped to 7%, according to Betsy Goldberg, senior corporate communications director for both organizations. Speaking during a press conference at Travel Market in San Antonio, Goldberg predicted the trend would continue downward as advisor adoption grows.
The survey data shows significant growth in AI adoption among advisors. In 2023, only 22% were using AI, rising to 32% the following year and reaching 59% in 2025. Equally notable, the percentage of advisors who view AI as a valuable tool increased from 16% in 2023 to 45% in 2024.
Generative AI entered the market in 2022, with agentic AI arriving in 2024. Goldberg explained that while many agencies still rely on generative AI’s content-creation capabilities, forward-thinking organizations are exploring agentic AI, which can plan, reason and act independently with minimal human oversight.
“AI can now help you set goals, plan actions, execute tasks. It can provide the ultimate in automation,” Goldberg said, noting that travel agencies are beginning to apply these technologies despite it being early days for agentic AI’s industry impact.
Advisor Stories from the Front Lines
Three agency owners shared their experiences during a panel discussion. Nikki Hendrix, president and CEO of Favorite Grampy Travels in Leesburg, Virginia; Michelle Gammond, owner of Travel Potions in Alberta, Canada; and Sarah Bonsall, founder of Latitude 21 Travel in Independence, Kentucky.
Bonsall described herself as “addicted to AI” and revealed she’s built multiple AI assistants. One handles her blog writing, another functions as a bookkeeper connecting to QuickBooks for account reconciliations. She also created an automated client follow-up system and a daily AI assistant dubbed “Sarah Brain” that monitors her email and calendar to produce morning to-do lists highlighting hot leads and supplier follow-ups.
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Additionally, Bonsall developed a virtual “board of directors” consisting of different AI personas to provide varied perspectives. “When you’re on an island as an agency owner and you need to bounce ideas off someone, I have five different executives that I’ve created,” she explained.
Gammond, a newer AI adopter, has used the technology primarily for branding her agency. She merged her travel expertise with her pub ownership background by having AI design her website featuring digital shelves displaying travel experience bottles. She also uses AI as a business sounding board for strategic decisions.
AI Tools Enhancing Agency Operations
At Favorite Grampy Travels, AI powers a lead-generating tool on their website. The agency specializes in family travel and theme park vacations. Their AI-optimized site now generates nearly 2 million impressions monthly, up from 179,000 after optimization began in March.
Within the agency, AI tracks package pricing for booked clients and sends advisors daily emails highlighting the top 10 industry news relevant to their specialties. Hendrix also implemented Meta’s agentic AI, Muse, to analyze posts in their Facebook groups. Muse identifies which posts convert to bookings, ranks them, and assigns leads to advisors based on availability, tracking response times and follow-up progress.
Addressing Advisor Concerns and Best Practices
Concerns about AI replacing advisors were dispelled by Bonsall, who emphasized that AI lacks the supplier relationships and human judgment advisors possess. “It’s literally impossible,” she stated, noting that AI cannot build the trust essential to travel planning.
