Artificial Intelligence is becoming an important technology in the tourism and hospitality sector. It is used in online travel planning, hotel booking, customer support, recommendation systems, chatbots, digital marketing, smart destinations, language translation, review analysis and travel safety. In earlier years, tourists mainly depended on travel agents, guidebooks, brochures and personal suggestions. Today, tourists use mobile applications, AI-based search tools, online reviews, maps, smart payment systems and virtual assistants during almost every stage of the journey. Because of this, AI has started changing both tourist experience and tourism business management. This research paper studies the role of Artificial Intelligence in smart tourism and travel experience. The paper focuses on how AI improves personalization, faster service, destination promotion, customer communication, business decision-making, demand forecasting and operational efficiency. It also discusses challenges such as data privacy, fake reviews, algorithmic bias, overdependence on digital platforms, job displacement, cyber security risk and unequal access for small tourism businesses. The study follows a review-based research method using existing academic sources related to eTourism, smart tourism, intelligent systems, automation and AI in tourism. The study concludes that AI can make tourism more convenient, personalized and competitive when it is used responsibly. However, tourism is also a human-centered industry where trust, local culture, emotions and service quality are important. Therefore, AI should support human service instead of completely replacing it. Responsible AI, ethical data use, human supervision and inclusive technology adoption are necessary for sustainable tourism development.
Nagmote et al. (2026) studied this question.