AI CYCLONE SWEEPS UP Indian travel industry

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes omnipresent across India, one of the industries where its adoption has been wholehearted in the current year is the travel and tourism industry, as companies and consumers turn with equal enthusiasm towards the technology. The hunger of AI is far from satiated as companies race to install ever-improving systems and even those left out of the game begin to turn towards its adoption.

- RANVIR NAYAR & VARSHA SINGH

The year 2025 can uncontestably be called the Year of Artificial Intelligence for travel and tourism industry, both globally as well as here in India. Not a week has passed without a major announcement by leading players in the industry about deployment of a feature or an entirely new platform.

In August, MakeMyTrip (MMT), a leading B2C Online Travel Agency (OTA), announced the launch of Myra, a generative AI-powered multilingual trip planning tool to facilitate the trip planning by its customers right down to the last detail. In October, it followed up with a semantic search allowing consumers to use natural language for hotel and homestay searches.

Days later, one of the largest B2B players in the Indian and regional markets, TBO joined hands with travel technology firm Amadeus to adopt its AI-powered Travel Marketplace to connect travel sellers and providers, offering travel agents access to new content and services.

Fast, but unequal adoption in India

While there is no doubt that, like everywhere else around the world, in India, too, AI is increasingly becoming part of practically all parts of life, including work and leisure, though the adoption is highly unequal. In work, the adoption rates also vary sharply by the sector and the geography.

A report by KPMG, a consultancy firm, highlights these gaps not just between different businesses, but also within the same sector in different places.