Travel agencies are once again on the verge of a major transformation. As the rise of online travel agencies redefined the travel industry in the early 2000s the arrival of AI and specifically agentic and generative AI may soon redraw employment maps across the travel sector.
Skift Research analyzed government employment data in order to better understand how AI is affecting the travel industry. We also looked at what we could have learned from previous technological disruptions and what future shifts we might expect.
Travel’s Tech Gap, and its Catch-Up Potential
The travel industry is still surprisingly lacking in tech talent, despite its rapid digitalization. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, computer-related jobs, like software engineers and web designers, make up only 0.25 percent of the U.S. travel workforce.
