The future of travel isn’t arriving someday; it’s booking rooms, approving refunds, and answering questions right now. From the floor of World Travel Market London, Phil Blizzard joins three leaders pushing AI from buzzword to business value—speeding up claims, selling smarter, and restoring trust where it’s been eroded. First, Steven Joyce of Protect Group shows how Refund Protect turns non‑refundable trips into peace of mind with AI‑accelerated approvals and payouts within hours, not weeks. By partnering with tour operators, OTAs, airlines, and hotels rather than selling direct, the model boosts conversion while removing pre‑trip anxiety for travellers. We break down costs, workflows, and why a customer‑first claim experience matters more than ever. Then, Benjamin Manzi of Maya opens the hood on travel‑specialist AI agents built to sell more trips and handle support across 150+ languages. Beyond chat, internal agents draft quotes, invoices, and emails, giving human teams leverage where it counts. We explore how market maturity flipped from scepticism to urgency, what differentiates domain‑trained travel AI, and why capturing traffic from search and assistants depends on agents that speak the industry’s language. Finally, Daniel Reeves of Room Angel tackles the surge of scam sites and opaque pricing. Their verification tokens bring cryptographic trust to hotel bookings and agentic conversations, while fair‑price benchmarks help consumers and regulators see whether a rate is reasonable. With consolidation on the horizon and agentic distribution set to grow rapidly, we discuss the partnerships, data, and rules that will define how hotels compete on transparency and value. If you care about faster refunds, smarter sales, and safer bookings, this conversation is your map to what’s next. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review to tell us which AI upgrade you want travel brands to adopt first.
