In travel, the machine has entered the room. It can plan, predict, personalise and, when fed the right prompts, probably remind you that your safari hat should not look as if it once belonged to a colonial minor character. But according to luxury experiential travel company andBeyond, the next great status symbol will not be the algorithm. It will be the hand, the voice, the seasoned guide and the rare pleasure of being properly understood.
As AI reshapes how travellers discover destinations, build itineraries and move through hospitality systems, andBeyond argues that technology will become more important precisely because it must disappear. The company, styled &Beyond, was established in 1991 and operates bespoke tours and lodges across Africa, Asia, South America and Antarctica, with a long-standing model built around care for land, wildlife and people.
Nicole Robinson, andBeyond’s Chief Marketing Officer, says the next five to ten years will see travellers grow more comfortable with AI in planning and booking. Faster answers, sharper recommendations, and smoother journeys will become the norm. In other words, convenience will no longer be a wow factor. It will be the plumbing.
The luxury test will be different. It will be whether a guest feels seen, not merely segmented.
“The guest should not feel the technology. They should feel the care it makes possible,” says Robinson.
That line lands because it cuts through the current industry noise. Travel is now awash with digital concierges, predictive platforms and increasingly clever itinerary tools. McKinsey has noted rising consumer confidence in AI for travel information, while the World Travel & Tourism Council has framed AI as a force capable of improving personalisation and delivering more meaningful travel experiences. Yet in high-end travel, software is not the soul of the story. It is the backstage crew.
For andBeyond, AI’s best work may happen out of sight: assisting teams with itinerary planning, continuity, operational timing and the quiet remembering of guest preferences. That matters. A lodge that knows a returning guest prefers early coffee before a game drive has done its homework. A guide who senses that same guest needs silence when elephants drift through morning light has done something finer.
That is where the old craft of hospitality still earns its keep. There are moments in travel that cannot be automated without being flattened. A guide chooses when to speak and when to let the bush speak first. A host reads fatigue, curiosity, grief, excitement or the need for a stiff drink delivered without fuss. A good travel professional understands that personalisation is not simply using a name in a pre-arrival email. It is judgement, restraint and attention.
“There is a difference between being targeted and being understood. One feels automated. The other feels generous,” says Robinson. “Technology can help us gather information, but our people are what turn that information into meaning.”
In safari and nature-based travel, that distinction is not academic. The best guides are interpreters of place. They read tracks, weather, animal behaviour and human temperament in real time. They know when a leopard sighting needs a story, and when it needs reverent quiet. They translate wilderness without making it feel like a lecture.
This is why andBeyond’s message is timely. The travel trade has spent years selling seamlessness. Now it must sell significance. AI can remove friction, but only people can create feelings. AI can predict preference, but only people can offer grace. AI can serve an itinerary, but it cannot share a campfire pause under a southern sky and know, instinctively, that nobody should spoil it by talking.
The future of luxury travel, then, will not be man versus machine. It will be the better old-fashioned answer: use the tool, respect the craft and never confuse efficiency with hospitality. For travellers, the rarest luxury may soon be the one that has always mattered most, being met, not managed.
By: Octavia Koo – © 2026.
Read Time: 3 minutes.
Author Bio:
Octavia Koo arrived in Australia in the early eighties with little fuss and a good eye. Sydney suited her. At UNSW, she studied Arts, then found her footing in graphic design before drifting, quite naturally, into the digital side of things, building websites and shaping words that made people want to stay.
Singapore followed, and with it, the fast pace of tourism platforms and ITB Asia. Long before SEO became a buzzword, Octavia understood how stories travelled online. That’s where she met Stephen, and the seed for something more was planted.
A few years later, she joined Global Travel Media.
Today, Octavia works with quiet assurance, blending art, instinct and experience to produce stories that don’t shout; they simply work and linger.
