Most of us like to travel, but our tastes are very different. AI can help create personalized travel experiences, regardless of your travel goals — making recommendations for the best travel destinations for our taste and budget, recommending specific activities, and so on.

That’s why the online travel industry is projected to grow at a nearly 10% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) until 2033.

AI is also behind the next generation of chatbots, which are increasingly used across tourism and many other industries. Customers can ask questions, book rooms, add extra luggage, and so on — oftentimes more quickly than if they had to wait until they get a human booking agent on the telephone.

If you regularly book hotels or plane rides online, you likely have come across the phenomenon that prices change regularly. This dynamic pricing is based on AI algorithms — with them, hotel companies, airlines, and so on want to react to demand moving up and down over time, making sure that their prices allow for a good match between supply and demand.

When we travel to foreign countries, language can be a barrier. Not everyone speaks English, after all, which can result in difficulties when talking to taxi drivers, booking activities, ordering at restaurants, and so on. Artificial intelligence-based translation tools are a help here as well, allowing us to communicate more easily with people from other countries that don’t share our language.

Also, airports, train services, and so on, can be made more efficient with AI as well. In some airports, security is partially automated via facial recognition technology, for example. Algorithms that are related to Smart City-style tools can help predict traffic levels, thereby optimizing train schedules, bus routes, and so on — allowing us to move more quickly and more efficiently when we are traveling.

While not a big market yet, robotics could become huge in the tourism industry. AI-enabled robots could help with room cleaning in hotels, could help with serving food in restaurants, could help handle luggage in airports, and so on.

 Where’s the Money in AI Tourism?

While many airlines, hotel companies, cruise lines, and so on already use AI in one way or another, they aren’t really “AI investments.” Their core business is something else, and they can be quite exposed to economic ups and downs, commodity pricing (fuel for airlines), and so on.

More “techy” tourism companies, like Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB) or Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG), have higher AI exposure and oftentimes better growth rates, making them interesting for investors.

Investors can also invest in the companies that provide the tech stack that’s necessary for AI use in the tourism industry and that work behind the scenes. Companies like NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) come to mind — NVIDIA’s chips do the heavy lifting when it comes to powering and training algorithms, whether for dynamic pricing, chatbots, travel infrastructure planning and optimization, and so on.

Investors can also choose among our top Artificial Intelligence picks to benefit from increased Artificial Intelligence usage in the tourism industry, as well as from general growth in the world of Artificial Intelligence.