Plan your holidays smarter using AI and tech hacks for stress-free travel

Discover how smart technology and ai hacks can simplify your holiday planning, save time, and create a seamless travel experience from start to finish. (Image: Pexels)

As the year winds down and festive cheer fills the air, there’s one thing on everyone’s mind — a well-deserved holiday. Whether it’s a quick mountain retreat, a tropical escape, or a cultural getaway, the year-end season is synonymous with travel plans, group chats, and frantic fare searches. With airfare surges and limited hotel availability, the difference between a stressful booking and a seamless holiday often comes down to one thing — how smartly you use technology.

Tech takes off: smarter ways to plan

With the year end, the official holiday season starts and invariably everyone starts looking up for cheaper flights, hotel deals and travel packages. With smart tech and clever AI hacks, here’s how one can make the most of the festive period by planning smartly. The travel industry has evolved to make holiday planning not just easier, but also more intuitive and cost-effective. AI-driven tools now help travellers make informed, flexible, and confident choices, ensuring every journey is well-planned and seamless.

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When it comes to planning travels around holiday and festive periods, flexibility is the secret to unlocking the best deals. Skyscanner’s travel trends and destinations expert Neel Ghose mentions, “Apps with handy search tools is especially useful in letting travellers view fares across the entire month and instantly spot the cheapest days to fly unlocking significant savings.

Another practical hack is mixing and matching airlines or considering nearby airports, which widens the search to include all available airports at both ends of the journey and increase chances of finding the best deal. For those seeking a breather from the crowds, using multi-city flight search can help pair marquee festivals with nearby hidden gems. Beyond flights, one can use features to explore nearby accommodation options, often revealing stays just a few streets away that offer better value.”

AI: the new travel agent

The modern traveller no longer spends hours juggling multiple tabs or comparing endless itineraries. From inspiration to booking, one can rely on intelligent and intuitive travel apps to compare prices across different providers, track deals, and make every rupee go further. Travellers in India are embracing technology as part of their routine and with AI now acting as a personal travel concierge.

AI is reshaping the entire travel journey, from the moment inspiration strikes to the final booking decision. Ghose notes, “What was once a time-consuming process is now more intuitive, personalised, and efficient. We’re seeing AI evolve from being assistive to taking a more agentic role in travel planning - guiding, curating, and simplifying decisions for travellers. AI is also improving how travellers review and decide. AI enabled summaries of hotel reviews highlight key insights from other guests, helping users make quick, confident choices.”

Smart hacks for a seamless getaway

To get the most out of your holiday budget, let tech do the heavy lifting.

• Set fare alerts on search apps and travel aggregator websites as they track price changes in real time and notify you when fares drop.

• Use AI-enabled chat assistants to suggest personalized itineraries or hidden gems based on your interests. Explore dynamic packaging tools that combine flights and stays, often at lower rates than booking separately.

• Don’t overlook browser extensions that automatically apply coupons or predict price trends. And once you’ve landed, AI-powered translators, offline maps, and itinerary organizers ensure the journey remains as smooth as the planning.