Travel advisors who use AI daily generated 4.3 times more commissionable booking value over the past year than non-users, according to data from host agency platform Fora. The figure anchors a rapid shift in the agency channel: Phocuswright research conducted with Travel Weekly found 59% of advisors have already used generative AI tools, up from 41% a year earlier.

The same research shows 56% of advisors describe themselves as cautiously optimistic about adopting new technology. An updated study, U.S. Travel Agency Landscape 2026, will be released later this year to measure how adoption and attitudes are changing.

Jake Peters, co-founder, CTO and chief product officer of Fora, said interest in AI "is spanning every age group and every level of technical comfort in ways I haven't seen in my almost 40 years of building technology."

Why the numbers matter for sellers

The commercial logic behind adoption is capacity, not novelty. David Shull, co-founder and CEO of Tern, estimates that 80%-90% of an advisor's day goes to administrative tasks — work that, in his words, is "not using their expertise."

He recalled a former advisor who told him: "I was doing $2 million in annual sales as a travel advisor. I could have easily done $5 [million] or $6 million, I just didn't have time." Shull's framing: "If you gave them another 10 hours in the week, they could sell a whole lot more."

Phocuswright found advisors are most interested in generative AI for:

• Emails, marketing materials and website content
• Customized itineraries
• Curated travel packages
• Automating scheduling, booking administration and client communications

From tasks to workflows

Vendors are racing to automate exactly those functions. Tern, which raised $13 million in Series A funding in 2025, recently launched agentic AI capabilities that can review advisor emails and draft responses, build itineraries, process confirmations and run trip audits — flagging missing hotel nights or absent confirmation numbers before problems surface.

Advisors approve any critical action the AI suggests before changes are made. "We're always trying to find the balance between usefulness and approval," Shull said, adding that advisors will eventually set global rules for which tasks the agent handles independently.

Fora, which announced $60 million in Series B and C rounds in 2025, is beta testing Via, an embedded AI agent, with a subset of advisors. Its earlier AI work targeted GDS data cleaning, commission reconciliation and converting supplier proposals into itineraries.

"Via will become the AI operating layer across our entire platform," Peters said. "It will live inside our existing interfaces alongside an always-on chat assistant, shifting Fora's portal from a reactive tool to a proactive one."

How are advisors actually using it?

Tern reviewed usage data covering 6,900 advisors over the last 90 days. The number of advisors using AI each month has nearly tripled in the past year, and a typical advisor now uses AI 50 times per month, up from 12 a year ago.

Acceptance patterns show where advisors still draw the line:

• Nearly nine in 10 routine AI suggestions (updating trips, adding contacts) are accepted
• Only six in 10 email drafts are accepted without the advisor editing them first

The productivity gains translate into measurable output. Fora advisors using AI daily made 3.5x more bookings, served 3.3x more clients, generated 3.5x more repeat clients per advisor, and were 2.5x more likely to hit $100,000 in bookings in their first year.

Reliability gains are also surfacing. Tern shared the case of an advisor who ran a pre-departure AI review on a luxury Italy trip; the system flagged an unpaid hotel reservation that would have been cancelled before arrival. "Tern's AI review didn't just catch a small thing, it literally saved a trip," the advisor reported.

What changes for hosts and the channel?

Attitudes inside the trade have shifted. "I think, generally speaking, we're past the freak-out phase," said Mickey McBride, VP of sales at Avoya Travel. "From a perception standpoint, I think AI is seen as more of a compliment and not a competitor."

Host agencies face sharper differentiation. "Which host agency you choose will matter more, not less," Peters said, arguing AI will reward hosts that invest in integrated technology, proprietary data and advisor communities over disconnected third-party tools. Shull expects automation to free hosts to spend more on advisor education, supplier relationships, compliance and community support.

The sizing argument is explicit. "My goal is that we take what's a $127 billion industry today, and I think if you make advisors two-to-three times more efficient, that easily becomes a $300 billion industry," Shull said.

McBride framed the winning formula as advisors who are "high tech and high touch" — combining AI-driven efficiency with the judgment and relationships that close bookings. Shull went further: "I think it's gonna be the best thing that's ever happened to the travel advisor."