Johanna Jainchill
OK, Traci. You got me. I'm amazed.
Onstage last week at Travel Weekly's Hawaii Leadership Forum, Priceline chief commercial officer Traci Mercer said to the audience, "If you like to cook, download the ChatGPT app, take a picture of your fridge, upload the picture and say, 'What should I make for dinner?' You will be amazed at what happens."
I did it. And I was.
I hadn't realized I had the ingredients for spicy chicken lettuce wraps, something I've never made, but I ultimately settled on the roasted veggie bowl with avocado, a good use of both the cauliflower and broccoli.
Mercer was making the point to an audience of leaders from the hotel, airline, destination marketing and government entities involved in Hawaii tourism: They should start doing things like that, because that's what their customers do.
"That's how the travelers researching this destination are going to start doing things, and they're miles ahead of us," she said.
Mercer's message was in response to my question during the session; I'd asked for one piece of advice she'd give the leaders in that room for this year.
If you're not involved in AI -- if you're not personally using AI in some way, shape or material form -- do it," she said.
Mercer pointed to Phocuswright data showing that 56% of U.S. travelers use AI in some part of the planning of their journey. A Priceline query of travelers in the Asia-Pacific region found that 63% said they will use AI in some part of their future trip-planning.
And, she said, it's changed how people research travel.
"Search in general is becoming more conversational," she said, adding that even Google searches are seeing the number of words in a query growing as people get used to AI being able to interpret and pull from more search terms.
For an OTA like Priceline, that's made for a radical shift. Mercer said the OTAs got really good at helping travelers who knew what dates they wanted to travel and where they wanted to go convert that information into a booking.
"That is not the world we're in as we go forward," she said. "That is a point in the journey."
Now, people are searching, for example, that they want to go somewhere with a really cool vibe that has a beach but also nightlife and karaoke and great ramen, but they want to walk everywhere and don't want to get a rental car.
"Those are literally the queries that are coming in," she said. "There are no filters, check boxes, APIs that support that experience, but AI is forcing us to think like that."
The good news for travel advisors is that as advanced as it is, Mercer said AI still can't replace human judgment. Travelers are mostly using it for the research part of the travel booking funnel.
"That's where we're really seeing it play a critical part," she said. "AI is not going to replace human judgment for travel. In other words, they're going to help suggest, inform, plan, make easier, narrow things. But ultimately, if you're committing $5,000 to that vacation, you really want to make sure you're making that right investment and that right decision."
Another thing about AI, Mercer said, is that it's addictive, and you will get hooked. "It is very, very good at what it does," she said.
But based on my fridge photo experience, that might not be such a bad addiction. And for those further along in the AI journey, Mercer said, the next step is to create AI agents that can optimize your time by writing and researching things for you. Even something as simple as asking it to condense the podcasts and newsletters you want to listen to and read but don't have time for.
"Have it create a summary podcast for you that you can listen to on your walk to work," she said.
I'm committed to taking Mercer's advice to heart. Like many of you, I've slowly dipped my toes in the AI waters but know I am missing out on a lot of potentially helpful and time-saving ways to use it.
I'm guessing a good percentage of the 350 members of the Forum audience went home last week and took pics of their fridge. I'd love to know what you made for dinner.