Human experience beats AI for travel recommendations, new Explore Worldwide research reveals

As conversations around generative AI continue to dominate headlines, new research from small group travel operator Explore Worldwide reveals that people are more than twice as likely to trust someone with first-hand experience when looking for recommendations in an unfamiliar destination than an AI tool. In a survey of 2,000 working adults in the UK, conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of Explore Worldwide, recommendations from friends or family who had visited the destination were trusted by four in five respondents when considering experiences somewhere they had never been, compared with just 32% who would trust an AI tool.