Autonomous travel decision-making: An early glimpse into ChatGPT and generative AI

Generative AI technologies, including large language models (LLMs), have the potential to bring significant advancements to the tourism and hospitality industry through an array of ingenious features. ChatGPT, as a type of generative AI, is a state-of-the-art LLM that is bundled with extensive capabilities. This commentary provides an early snapshot of ChatGPT's ability to enhance the tourist decision-making process in the pre-trip, en-route, and post-trip stages. Particularly, ChatGPT greatly differentiates itself from the traditional travel decision-making process by putting the tourist in the driver's seat to actively probe for highly relevant information through a question-and-answer mode. In this research note, we present different scenarios with cases demonstrating how ChatGPT can improve tourists' experience in these three travel stages, with trip planning efficiency, customized recommendations, 24/7 personal assistant, AI-mediated communication fluency, autonomous guided tours, enriched sharing experience, and AI-induced prolonged satisfaction. In summary, these value-added autonomous services provide tourists with travel solutions that are highly cost-effective, offering customized information that allows them to travel with ease.