WebinarOnline
The smart tourism revolution: AI, e-tourism and the future of personalised travel experiences
Friday, 23 October 2026
A balanced exploration of AI and smart tourism, examining how personalised services can improve travel while raising important questions about privacy, bias, platform power, accessibility and the continuing role of human judgement.
About this event
Digital platforms increasingly shape how travellers imagine destinations, compare services and move through unfamiliar places. Artificial intelligence extends this influence by predicting preferences and adapting recommendations in real time. This webinar examines the development of smart tourism and asks what personalised travel may offer when data, connected infrastructure and automated decisions become embedded throughout the visitor journey.
The discussion will explore how recommendation systems, conversational tools, sensors and digital destination services can improve relevance and accessibility. Personalisation may reduce search effort, identify suitable experiences and help manage busy places. Yet it can also narrow discovery, reproduce biased assumptions and direct attention towards options that serve platform interests rather than the needs of travellers or communities.
The session will place technical possibilities within a wider social and institutional context. It will consider consent, privacy, explainability and unequal access to digital services. Participants will examine who controls tourism data, how value is distributed and what forms of oversight are needed when automated systems influence mobility, spending and encounters with place.
Researchers, students, technologists, destination professionals and tourism practitioners will gain a critical framework for assessing smart services. The webinar will avoid treating innovation as either inevitable progress or an inherent threat. Instead, it will ask how systems can remain useful, accountable and open to human judgement. The goal is to identify design choices that support richer travel while respecting autonomy, diversity and local priorities. These principles can help digital innovation broaden possibility without quietly determining which journeys, places or perspectives remain visible.