Danny Waine
Guest speaker Danny Waine of Travel Nomads outlined the transformative impact of artificial intelligence on the travel industry, comparing its potential disruption to the advent of the internet in the 1990s. Key applications identified for travel agencies and tour operators include automated content creation, building a company knowledge base, and AI powered performance evaluation tools that analyse all customer interactions. The evolution from simple AI agents to more advanced, autonomous ‘agentic AI’ systems was highlighted as a major development.
Danny Waine told the annual conference of the Irish Travel Agents Association in Alcobaca in Portugal that AI could replicate and scale many traditional agency functions. He demonstrated a tool that listens to all customer calls and emails to provide instant feedback and coaching for agents based on customised performance metrics. Waine also showcased conceptual AI travel agents capable of handling the entire customer journey from inquiry to booking and payment with minimal human intervention.
Specific real world examples were cited, including an airport customer service AI that triages passenger queries and a hotel feedback tool that proactively resolves guest issues via WhatsApp to generate positive reviews. For distribution, Waine presented a system where an AI agent could interface directly with tour operator booking platforms to source and present options to a customer, securing commission for the agency.
The speaker addressed concerns about AI reliability by explaining a method where AI systems are trained and scored against the performance of a company’s best human agents. This creates a benchmark to ensure AI outputs meet a defined quality standard before customer deployment. He stressed that the core motivation for travel remains a human desire for experience, but AI can enhance service personalisation and operational efficiency.
Waine concluded that AI integration will become standard for handling high volume inquiries and optimising internal processes, allowing human agents to focus on complex sales and relationship management. The technology’s rapid adoption curve suggests these tools will become deeply embedded in travel retail within the next few years, fundamentally changing business models.
Danny Waine shared: “The belief is that AI will revolutionise the industry in less than five years… the way that I’m trying to get this to my mind is a little bit like me when I started as an intern compared to 20 years later.”
“What sense does is it actually listens to every single interaction that comes into a business and it gives instant feedback to all of the agents.”
“The question I get at the end of this discussion is, what about when the AI gets it wrong?… What we’ve finished is we’ve actually, by using systems and training them on your humans… the AI is then evaluated in exactly the same way.”
