AI won't fix the trip experience, and this is why: Skyscanner's John Mangelaars

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Travel is undergoing a shift and while artificial intelligence is revolutionising trip planning by providing tailored options for everyone, it may not help solve the deeper issues within the overall experience, the chief of a global travel search platform said. According to John Mangelaars, CEO of Skyscanner, policy decisions across the world - rather than technology alone - will drive changes in the sector.

In an interview withMint during his visit to India this week, Mangelaars advised against over-reliance on AI. He said the trip experience for a traveller is still broken because flight and car bookings, for instance, are largely done on separate platforms, and this is not something that AI can fix. “What is really broken is not so much the way we book it, I think, the way we experience it.

When you see the number of people using AI today, like to explore and plan and get ideas for their travel, that's where AI is very strong and can really help with that, like tailoring the information, but AI cannot help solve things like degrees of separation and ease of travel. That needs to come from policy," Mangelaars said. He said India is a focal point in this evolution as the country's population, led by millennials, is increasingly opting for flights over trains and is eager to explore destinations abroad.

"Our learnings from the pandemic are that people want to travel more, just like what we see happening in India, especially the millennial generation. Just the way they are making a switch from a train to a flight, they also want to travel abroad more. And while they're willing to spend more money, they also want to have good deals along with a quality experience, they don't want to go