agent vs. ai: Why book a travel advisor?
the debate
So why would you even bother working with a human travel agent when you can do all the research with Chat GPT? It’s a fair question. Three reasons: customization, decision making and information overload.
Let’s look at this from a couple of different angles.
1: Destination Selection
This is a common place people get tripped up. Using Chat GPT will give you the standard “kid-friendly destinations,”: Disney, an all-inclusive resort, a cruise and maybe somewhere like Costa Rica. If you continue to prompt Chat GPT and provide more information you will get more and more options. Using Chat GPT for destination selection results in information overload, which leads to analysis paralysis. Since parents are already overwhelmed by decision fatigue, we recommend starting with a human.
Now let’s look at the human advisor path! Instead of immediately throwing around destinations, let’s chat about your family! What kind of trip you are hoping to have, what your family loves to do and your budget. We can narrow down destinations and give you targeted, customized recommendations and avoid information overload leading to analysis paralysis.
2: Scheduling
Trying to find a week or two for travel in the midst of work schedules, PTO balances, child care, school calendars, sports and camps is no easy feat. I asked Chat GPT when to take kids on vacation. It suggested summer vacation, spring break (which really varies by school system), winter break and shoulder season. Basically, chat GPT recommends traveling during every time of year, not super helpful.
By working with a human advisor, we can triangulate these different constraints and determine a travel window. Within that window, we can determine the duration and that’s all we need to start hunting for flights and ideal destinations to meet your trip.
We also need to consider the time of year and what you want to do on this trip! Northern Lights won’t be happening in the summer. Caribbean destinations in the summer may have discounts but also carry a risk of hurricanes. Let’s talk about these trade offs and find some solid destinations in your travel window.
3: Budgeting
Next we need to talk about how much the trip will actually cost. Travel is an investment, particularly family travel and we want to make sure that your money is going as far as possible.
Your budget is going to depend on a ton of factors, as Chat GPT points out. It highlights destination, number of travelers, length of stay, accommodation type, transport, activities and dining choices and offers huge ranges. This is all true, it’s also extremely unspecific.
A travel advisor will take all of these factors into consideration and give you a targeted number with dollars. It’s not going to be a 5 minute job but it’s going to be accurate and based on real life pricing for your family’s preferences on your trip, the destination and your total budget. In this case, we would still go with the travel advisor because it may take longer but will be more accurate.
4: Insurance
Preparing for the unexpected is a huge part of travel, especially travel with kids. When we book anything into the future, we need to know: is this refundable or changeable and for how long? What if we get sick or have an emergency on our trip? What if we need to cancel our trip completely?
A travel advisor can walk you through different cancellation, change and insurance options to give you the right amount of information to make a decision, instead of wallow in anxiety. If something DOES happen on your trip, an advisor can advocate for you and be in your corner, making sure you get the support that you need. Chat GPT is going to help you gather information but in the case of emergency preparedness, do you really want to know all the information about everything that can happen or do you want someone to sift through it and let you know the bottom line? We recommend the human here too.
5: Lodging Selection and Deals
Chat GPT is going to provide some general lodging options and price ranges but will not be able to check real life inventory and up to date numbers. Chat GPT also won’t get you a room with a guaranteed mini-fridge so you can store your baby’s bottles or connecting rooms with your kids.
A travel advisor is going to work through that and get you real-time inventory, features, crazy deals and extra perks.
I recently had a client looking for hotels in the Seattle area in peak season. She was seeing hotel rates in the $500+ nightly range. The same hotels on my travel agent portal for a fraction of the price, up to $300 a month. The agent rates just can’t be beat here!
6: Transport
This one gets confusing and overwhelming very quickly, especially with kids in tow. And yes, chat GPT can be great here if we ask it specific prompts. For example, mapping out an entire trip and how to get from place to place is pretty risky with AI. It can give you erroneous or out of date information and you can end up stranded somewhere.
If you ask me how to get from place to place, I’m going to use a couple of sites with up to date satellite map information and I’m going to give you options and recommendations. Maybe you can technically get from Salzburg to Prague by train but it’s going to take you all day. A car would be the most convenient but cross-country rental pick up and drop off fees are going to hurt that budget. So let’s chat and maybe we go with a combo of car and train.
When it comes to car seats? Don’t even get me started. Chat GPT cannot handle this convo, I promise you. While car seats are always best for infants and toddlers on planes, frequently plane seats aren’t going to be the right size to fit your full size car seat. We can chat airlines, car seat size, stroller that goes with the car seat, issues in renting car seats or booster seats, etc. From a mom that actually lived those experiences, I understand the complexity and can help.
7: Activities
Understanding what kinds of activities are kid-friendly is more complicated than it sounds. Timing, energy levels, food, drinks and snacks, and age restrictions all need to be triangulated. While it may make sense on paper and to chat GPT that you’re doing a 2 pm boat ride, it’s going to be an immediate red flag to me because I’ve done that, we missed nap / screen time and everyone melted down.
8: Food
Food is complicated when you’re traveling with kids. You want them to experience the new flavors and culture but you also don’t want to lose your mind with fighting over foods, and tantrums in restaurants. When traveling with neurodiverse kiddos who might struggle with ARFID or selective eating habits, the stakes feel much higher. Chat GPT isn’t going to understand that your kids will only eat food in ball form but as a mom, I will. Let’s figure out a destination that will work for your eaters and how to expose the kids to new foods in a way that won’t cause power struggles.
9: Emergencies
You really need a human here. If you have a health or security emergency during your trip, would you prefer a human or a chat bot? I’d personally go with the human here. My husband got really sick on our trip to Costa Rica and I was solo with all 3 kids and concerned about leaving him alone at our hotel. Having someone local I could call was incredibly valuable and saved our trip.
A travel advisor can also help you prepare for emergencies by connecting you with travel insurance.
10: After the Trip
After the trip, I usually get the post-trip blues. No one cares about my trip, no one wants to see all my photos and hear about my experiences. They’re just sitting on my phone waiting for IG reels to be created. Guess who wants to hear about your trip when you get home? Not Chat GPT, your travel advisor. We will follow up and ask how was the trip, what went well, what did you hate, what can we do better next time?
Concluding thought
While Chat GPT can be helpful with targeted and specific aspects of travel advising, overall we are going to go with the human every time to prevent decision fatigue, conduct analysis instead of info overload and customize our trip!