A few years back, Vidya Shree from Bengaluru signed up on a travel discovery platform called GetYourGuide to seek offbeat experiences in different countries. Soon, she started contributing to the platform as a content creator and earning credits to book new experiences. With technology, global travel has become much more accessible today and such platforms are enabling individuals to discover experiences to suit their travel style and even customise them, pointing them towards new experiences resulting from their previous searches.
In the age of instant gratification and hyper-personalisation, tech-enabled platforms are redefining what it means to explore the world. From curated itineraries to real-time concierge support, today’s travellers—especially millennials and Gen Z—are seeking more than affordability. According to the American Express 2025 Global Travel Trends Report, younger travellers are at the forefront of adopting generative AI in shaping their travel experiences. A striking 83% of Millennials and Gen Z respondents identified at least one Gen AI feature as helpful for booking, significantly outpacing the 64% of Gen X and Baby Boomers who felt the same. They demand authenticity, personalisation, and seamless digital service.
Among the top advantages cited by younger travellers were AI-powered activity suggestions (40%), tools for managing budgets and expenses (36%), real-time translation support (33%), and personalised itinerary planning (33%). The preference for digital-first planning is also evident, with 80% of Millennials and Gen Z appreciating the speed and ease of using travel apps or social media platforms to curate their trips.
Vidya (39), who runs a travel curation company SocialTravelPass herself, says, “I uncovered offbeat experiences which would be challenging to find on my own—like hidden food tours and local-led workshops in remote locations. These unique moments add real value to my content, letting me share authentic stories with the audience and connect with locals in a meaningful ways.”
Travel discovery
At the Skift India Forum held in New Delhi in March this year, Chitra Gurnani Daga - CEO & Co-founder of Thrillophilia said that the key to making technology work for travel curation are “customisation, consultation and making the experience seamless for the end user.” She also highlighted the role of data and being able to derive actionable insights from it to build sensible solutions. “More than 10 million users have come to the platform in the past few years. Being on the ground and interacting with travel operators help us relate such insights back to crafting products for users who return to look for new travel ideas and show them the exact kind of experiences they seek”, she elaborated in a panel discussion.
Enter platforms from India who are leading this shift with AI, automation, and innovation. Thrillophilia uses big data and user behaviour to curate immersive local experiences across 150+ destinations. PickYourTrail offers AI-powered itinerary planning and dynamic packaging for independent travellers, while Travaa simplifies trip planning with smart, collaborative itinerary builders. Such platforms are changing how we experience travel, making them more efficient, personalised, and enriching than ever before.
“Our AI-driven engine goes beyond standard filtering and taps into deep traveller data, looking at preferences, past behaviour, budgets, and travel goals—to offer curated itineraries and highly relevant experiences”, says Hari Ganapathy, Co-founder, PickYourTrail. According to him, integration of artificial intelligence (AI) not only helps with intelligent recommendations matching the traveller’s intent, but also reduces decision fatigue. “Instead of users sifting through hundreds of options, they’re presented with a streamlined, personalised journey that makes the discovery phase more inspiring and less overwhelming”, he explains.
Pamela Mukherjee, a Noida based YouTube creator used the platform to plan her trip to Yas Island in Abu Dhabi recently. “I found packages that were perfectly suitable for my family group with kids and explored Warner Brothers World and SeaWorld in a single day, at a very fair cost,” she explains. Apart from experiences, the platform can also support the whole trip with hotel and flight bookings, at attractive prices, she shared.
Future of travel
On the B2B side, the TravClan platform enables offline travel agents to build personalised websites within seconds, to effortlessly sell flights, hotels, and holidays. Through marketing tools, they gain access to social media-driven demand generation, as well as integrated back-end solutions for invoicing, payment collection, and customer relationship management. Acting as a one-stop shop, the platform allows agents to instantly book entire holidays. Co-founder & CEO Arun Bagaria says, “We have empowered many travel companies to rebuild their businesses faster post Covid, providing them with better livelihoods through increased demand generation and superior supply sourcing.” The company supports travel agents with destination experts who assist them in upskilling and selling more effectively.
Establishing that the future of travel is entwined with technology, Ganapathy says, “AI is set to be a defining force in the future of travel businesses—not as a standalone solution, but as a co-pilot that enables speed, scale, and smarter decision-making.”
At PickYourTrail, it is already playing a transformative role, automating complex back-end processes like multi-city routing, hotel selection, price optimisation, and even rebooking assistance when plans change. But Ganapathy doesn’t believe that AI will ever replace the human element. “The future lies in what we call the A+A model—AI for logic, Agents for magic. When technology and human expertise work in tandem, that’s when travel businesses can truly scale while still delivering deeply personal experiences,” he elaborates.
While technology offers undeniable convenience, nearly one in four travellers worldwide continue to value the human touch, preferring to consult with a travel agent when planning or modifying their trips. This enduring preference highlights that even in an AI-driven era, personalised service and expert guidance still remain essential to the travel experience.
