AI can answer questions, compare options, and build perfect itineraries — but only a human can understand why you’re travelling. After four decades of designing transformative journeys, Panache Founder Director, Sanjar Imam reflects on why emotion, instinct, and wisdom will always matter more than algorithms.
A friend referred a couple to me. She called: ‘We’ve never used a travel company … we book everything ourselves but you came highly recommended. Can you book our Brazil-Colombia trip?’
Her husband had done all the research. Could she send me a document to review?
I received a 17-page file on WhatsApp. Colour-coded. Cross-referenced. Weeks of ChatGPT queries distilled into meticulous detail. They wanted me to ‘just book it.’
On her next call, I asked one question: ‘What do you want to feel?’
Silence.
The document had everything; flight times, hotel ratings, restaurant suggestions, hidden gems. Thorough, algorithmic, soulless. AI answers every question except the one that matters: why are you really going? For me, that is the opening line on which any meaningful trip is built.
What AI misses, humans still understand
I use AI myself. As a matter of fact, 40% of travellers do. Research is faster, comparison easier, booking seamless. But information paralyses. When TripAdvisor shows 1,146 hotels in Cappadocia, how do you choose? The algorithm shows popularity. It does not know you. It knows your data shadow.
AI optimises for data, not delight. It finds the highest-rated restaurant but misses the Cappadocian kitchen where the grandmother still prepares slow-cooked testi kebab in sealed clay pots, smashed tableside before serving. Reviews reflect reviewers, not places. That ‘disappointing’ Marrakech riad? The guest wanted a pool in the medina. They missed the point entirely.
Travellers spend six months planning two weeks. They arrive exhausted, overprepared, underwhelmed.
Timing is everything. AI suggests Tanzania in July. Peak season. Wrong for those seeking the Migration without crowds. I move clients nine days either side, late June or early August. They witness river crossings with a tenth of the tourists. Nine days make the difference between trip and transformation.
Sequencing creates rhythm. AI books Cusco, then Sacred Valley, then Machu Picchu. Efficient. Altitude sickness guaranteed. I reverse it. Valley first. Acclimatize gently. Machu Picchu on day four. Cusco to celebrate after. The algorithm sees destinations. I see heartbeats, oxygen levels, bodies adjusting.
The power of access. In Rajasthan, AI books palace hotels. I send clients to havelis I have known thirty years. The owner joins them at dinner, slow-cooked, served under stars. They talk about royal lineage, about times when their forefathers were kings.
Crisis invisibility. A client’s Kanha safari permit was revoked because of last-minute government VIP visit. Tiger sighting chances gone sour. AI would offer refunds. I had them driven to Bandhavgarh; better reserve, maharaja’s hunting lodge, the finest naturalist guiding their safaris. The tiger they photographed made their magazine cover. Disaster became story.
ChatGPT sent a couple to ‘the best pasta in Rome.’ Thirty-minute walk in August heat. Closed two years. They do not know what they do not know. When Stockholm-Kiruna trains cancelled mid-winter, my clients called. Private transfer within the hour, routed through an ice hotel, lunch with reindeer herders. Disaster became highlight.
The human behind the itinerary
A new client shared their Japan plans with partial bookings done during cherry blossom season. They asked for my views. AI-recommended, typically, Tokyo-Kyoto hotels. Five stars. Stunning photos. I saw what they could not. Modern. No soul. Besides, the world descends on those cities during those dates. You see more mobile phones than cherry blossoms.
‘Cancel it. Trust me.’
I moved them a week earlier and booked the Kumano Trail, walked by pilgrims for a millennium. They had the cherry blossoms almost entirely to themselves, a few locals and barely any tourists.
‘How did you know?’
I did not explain that at an industry event, I had spent an evening with a Japanese ground operator who shared such secrets over indulgent drinks. That conversation, years ago, became my clients’ experience.
That client has been booking all her trips with me for over a decade now.
I use AI. I use it for what it does well; data mining. But I am pro-humanity.
AI processes data. I interpret dreams.
AI finds options. I make choices.
AI provides information. I create transformation.
Surveys show 71% of travellers value human support when plans collapse. Half prefer blended AI and human guidance. Only 4% want AI alone. The paradox? More information means travellers need someone to make sense of it. AI has not made me obsolete. It has made me essential.
Why experience still creates transformation
I did use that 17-page document, by the way … to understand what the couple thought they wanted. Then I asked what mattered. Twentieth anniversary. How do you feel? Depleted. Exhausted. Empty nesters navigating new territory. What do you remember from your honeymoon? Tuscany. Trattorias. Just each other.
I discarded their document.
Changed their destination entirely. Sacred Valley hacienda in Peru. No agenda. Three nights. Then Inkaterra at Machu Picchu with hummingbirds hovering at breakfast. Cusco afterward, ambling cobbled streets, pausing when tired for pisco and ceviche. Then Atacama Desert lodge in Chile — no WiFi, no news, no distractions. Sunsets over salt flats and star-gazing under the clearest skies on earth.
They returned transformed. Not because they saw more, but because they felt more.
She wrote: ‘Our research and document would have given us a trip. You gave us ourselves back.’
AI tourism will reach $1.5 trillion by 2032. The future is algorithmic, automated, instant.
But AI will never know that marriages need saving more than sightseeing. It will never understand that ‘cultural immersion’ is often hunger for meaning, not monuments. It will never recognize that the best gift is not another site but discovering that making something with your hands restores something in your heart.
These are human recognitions, human readings, human wisdom.
They require decades of watching people; not processing data, but seeing souls.
AI can plan a trip.
Experience plans a memory.
Expertise creates transformation.
After nearly forty years of doing it, I know which one lasts.
The algorithm tells you where to go.
I tell you why it matters.
And in the end, that is everything.
Do you share this belief — that travel should move you, not just take you places? Let Panache World craft a journey built on understanding, intuition, and meaning. Book your next transformative trip with us.
