Forty-two per cent of UK travellers expect to use artificial intelligence to plan trips this year. Yet those same holidaymakers rate AI-powered booking tools as the worst experience available.
The contradiction sits at the heart of new research released Tuesday by UserTesting, exposing a widening chasm between innovation and trust in online travel.
More than half, 52% of British travellers have watched prices jump mid-booking, that stomach-dropping moment when the fare you selected suddenly costs £50 more by checkout. Another 40 per cent cite hidden fees or opaque pricing during the research phase, the kind that only reveal themselves once you’ve invested twenty minutes filling out passenger details.
Price matters more than anything else. Seventy-eight per cent of travellers rank it as the most important factor when booking a holiday, outweighing convenience, flexibility, even the slickness of the app.
Which explains where the time goes. Nearly two-thirds—64 per cent—say hunting for the best deal devours most of their planning hours. Meanwhile, 55 per cent struggle simply to calculate what their holiday will actually cost.
The behaviour reveals something deeper than frustration with algorithms. Despite 90 per cent of travellers now relying on online booking sites, trust remains the ultimate gatekeeper—53 per cent say confidence in the provider is critical before they’ll hand over payment details. The majority still prefer to rely on themselves or a human travel agent, particularly when the stakes climb or complexity increases.
“Travellers are clearly embracing digital tools and even experimenting with AI, but when it comes to spending their money, trust still wins,” said Astrid Pocklington, Senior Marketing Manager at UserTesting. “Sudden price changes and hidden fees instantly erode confidence. The brands that will lead the next era of travel aren’t just the most innovative – they’re the most transparent.”
The findings arrive as travel companies race to integrate AI features—chatbot assistants, personalised itineraries, dynamic pricing algorithms—into platforms already struggling with transparency issues. Major booking sites have long faced criticism over drip pricing and availability changes, practices that predate machine learning but seem amplified by automated systems.
Beyond price volatility, travellers encounter a familiar catalogue of digital friction. Thirty-six per cent have experienced sudden availability changes, watching a hotel room or flight vanish between search and checkout. A quarter report technical website issues during booking, those loading wheels and error messages that surface at precisely the wrong moment.
Yet the infrastructure remains indispensable. Ninety per cent now rely on online booking sites, making them the default path to holiday planning. Fifty-nine per cent prioritise convenient flight and accommodation options, while 40 per cent won’t book without consulting verified reviews first.
The research, conducted across 1,000 UK consumers from UserTesting’s validated first-party panel, suggests the travel sector faces a trust deficit that technology alone won’t solve. AI can surface deals and streamline itineraries, but it can’t rebuild confidence shattered by a price that changes three times during checkout.
For platforms investing heavily in artificial intelligence, the data presents an uncomfortable reality. Innovation drives headlines and demo videos. Transparency drives conversions.
The gap shows up most clearly in complex bookings—multi-city trips, family holidays with specific requirements, travel that involves more than clicking a single flight and hotel package. These are precisely the scenarios where AI promises the greatest efficiency gains, yet where travellers retreat to human agents or painstaking self-research.
What’s missing isn’t sophistication. The algorithms can predict preferences, optimise routes, and surface options faster than any human. What’s missing is the confidence that the price displayed now will be the price charged later, that fees won’t materialise in paragraph seven of the terms, that availability reflects reality rather than marketing.
The brands positioned to win aren’t necessarily those with the most advanced AI. They’re the ones that pair automation with radical pricing clarity, that surface the total cost upfront, that explain why a price changed rather than simply presenting the new figure.
As AI reshapes travel planning—and it will, given the adoption trajectory—the competitive advantage may lie not in the intelligence of the algorithm but in the transparency of its output. Travellers will tolerate complexity. They won’t tolerate surprise charges.
The research also exposes how much time transparency issues waste. If 64 per cent spend most of their planning hours hunting deals and 55 per cent can’t easily calculate total costs, that’s millions of hours spent compensating for opaque systems. AI could reclaim that time, but only if it solves the pricing problem rather than obscures it further.
For now, the contradiction persists. Travellers experiment with AI tools for inspiration and research. Then they revert to traditional booking methods when money changes hands.
That behaviour won’t shift until the worst-rated experience becomes the most trustworthy one. The technology exists. The transparency doesn’t.
