Gen Z Trusts AI Holiday Planning More Than Google

AI Holiday Planning has crossed a line: Gen Z no longer just asks chatbots for trip ideas — young travelers are now trusting artificial intelligence with the decisions that used to require a travel agent. New research from Vision One Research finds that more than half of Gen Z has already used AI tools like ChatGPT to plan a holiday, and many would happily let the technology advise them on bookings, restaurants, and flights. In the same study, TikTok overtook Google as the top source of travel inspiration for the generation, marking another shift away from the old search-first playbook.

The numbers behind AI Holiday Planning tell a clear generational story. The Travel Brand Barometer, based on a survey of 3,000 UK consumers, found that 51% of Gen Z has used AI tools for holiday planning, compared with 43% of Millennials, 23% of Gen X, and just 9% of Baby Boomers. The gap widens on trust: 42% of Gen Z would trust AI with booking advice versus only 22% of Boomers, while 42% would take its restaurant recommendations against 32% of the oldest cohort. Even flight selection, one of the highest-stakes travel decisions, earns AI the confidence of 27% of Gen Z compared with 17% of Boomers.

TikTok now beats Google for trip ideas

Perhaps the most striking finding is where the inspiration comes from in the first place. Among Gen Z, 42% cite TikTok as an influence on their holiday decisions, ahead of 37% for Google and 33% for Instagram. That flips the script of the past decade, when search engines owned the top of the travel funnel and social feeds were just for showing off the trip afterward. For the oldest generations, the pattern still runs in reverse: TikTok barely registers, and search remains king. The research suggests younger travelers now discover, evaluate, and plan inside a single scroll, with video clips doing the job that keyword searches used to do.

This lines up with a broader Gen Z travel mood. This generation has already been ditching the traditional package holiday in favor of DIY trips, as Gen Z travelers abandon package holidays for good, and winter trips are skewing toward quieter, less crowded escapes according to this season's winter getaway trends. AI slots neatly into that independence: a free, always-on planner that never pushes the hotel with the best commission.

Why young travelers trust the algorithm

So what changed? According to Tony Lewis, the managing director of the research firm, the shift is not about asking a chatbot "where should I go on holiday" anymore. "What's interesting about the AI findings is that this isn't simply about people asking ChatGPT where they should go on holiday. It's solving much more complex holiday logistics," he said, pointing to tasks like matching itineraries with transfers, budgets, and onward stops. In other words, Gen Z is treating AI less like a search engine and more like a personal travel coordinator — one that can juggle flights, dinner spots, and day plans in a single thread.

That trust reflects how this generation already uses AI everywhere else. Gen Z drafts resumes, plans budgets, and even vents about careers with chatbots, so handing over a holiday itinerary is a natural extension rather than a leap. Older travelers, who came of age with travel agents and guidebooks, still want a human or at least a brand they know before money changes hands. The study's authors argue the comfort gap is about familiarity: the more decisions AI handles well in daily life, the closer to the point of purchase young people are willing to let it get.

The catch: AI still cannot book your flight for you

Before you hand your next trip to a chatbot, a few caveats are worth keeping. AI travel advice has a known weakness: hallucinated details. Chatbots can invent hotel names, misstate prices, and describe flights that do not exist with total confidence. The smart play is to treat AI as a draft itinerary machine, then verify every booking, price, and opening hour on the provider's own site before paying. Travel experts also recommend never sharing payment details with a chatbot and double-checking visa and cancellation rules yourself.

There is also a scope caveat in the data itself. The survey covered 3,000 UK consumers, so it captures British travel habits rather than a global picture, and the headline figures describe willingness and past use rather than completed AI-booked trips. Still, AI Holiday Planning has momentum: a generation raised on feeds and chat windows is rebuilding the holiday planning process around both. Expect travel brands to respond — from AI-powered booking assistants to TikTok-native marketing — because the customers arriving in the next few years will not be typing "cheap flights to Lisbon" into a search box first.

The research was released this month by Vision One, with full findings on the firm's site and via the original GlobeNewswire announcement. The press release from Vision One's own newsroom has the complete breakdown by generation.