Generative AI acts as cognitive scaffolding to rescue overwhelmed holiday planners

Holiday planning has quietly become one of the most cognitively demanding tasks in modern life. A single trip can require travellers to juggle flights, accommodation, budgets, local transport, weather windows, dietary needs and competing preferences, all while navigating an ocean of conflicting online information. New research from the University of Surrey suggests that generative artificial intelligence could change that experience fundamentally, not by taking decisions away from travellers, but by carrying part of the mental load that causes so many people to stall or give up altogether. The study, published in the Journal of Travel Research, introduces a conceptual framework that describes how AI can serve as a form of cognitive scaffolding during travel decision-making, supporting the planning process while leaving final judgements firmly in human hands.

The research team set out to understand what actually happens when people turn to tools such as conversational AI assistants while organising a real trip. Rather than running a laboratory experiment, the researchers drew on interviews with a group of UK adults who had used generative AI to help plan a recent or upcoming journey. From these accounts, they built a framework explaining how the technology redistributes mental work during the planning process. The central idea is subtle but important: generative AI does not simply automate holiday planning. Instead, it takes over specific coordination tasks, such as organising information, tracking details and keeping options ordered, which frees travellers to concentrate on the judgements that matter most to them.

This distinction between redistributing mental work and removing it runs through the whole study. The researchers describe a planning process built from a series of interconnected decisions about transport, accommodation, budgets and activities. Each decision constrains the others, and the sheer volume of information available online can quickly tip an engaged planner into a state of overwhelm. In that state, people tend to procrastinate, abandon their plans or settle for the first acceptable option simply to end the strain. The framework shows how an AI assistant can provide structure at exactly these pressure points, helping travellers stay focused and making it easier to move forward without hijacking the final choice.

According to the findings, generative AI supports travellers in three main ways. First, it reduces the mental effort of organising, tracking and coordinating plans, which in turn eases feelings of overwhelm. Second, it creates room to pause, compare options and reflect before committing to a decision, a form of breathing space that many interviewees found difficult to achieve when planning alone. Third, it helps travellers get started, keeps the planning process moving and carries it through to completion. For some participants, this third function was transformative: a holiday that might have been delayed indefinitely or abandoned entirely became something they felt able to finish planning.

Dr Yoonjung Kim, a doctoral researcher in Hospitality and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey and lead author of the study, explained the mechanics behind this effect. Planning a holiday, she noted, involves a series of connected decisions that can quickly become overwhelming, particularly when travellers face endless information and choices. The research finds that generative AI can provide structure, help people stay focused and make it easier to move forward without taking the final decision out of their hands. In cognitive terms, the technology acts as an external memory and organising layer, absorbing the clerical side of planning so that limited human attention can be spent on comparison and evaluation.

The benefits were most pronounced among travellers who found planning hardest to manage. The study suggests that AI turned holiday planning from a task they might delay or give up on into something they felt capable of completing. This is a significant finding because it reframes AI travel tools not merely as conveniences for tech-savvy users but as potential accessibility aids. The same properties that make generative AI useful for a busy professional comparing flight combinations, the ability to summarise options, hold context across a long conversation and keep multiple constraints visible, can make the difference between a possible holiday and an impossible one for someone who struggles with executive function or information overload.

Professor Iis Tussyadiah, Dean of Surrey Business School and co-author of the study, emphasised this broader implication. For some travellers, she observed, generative AI is more than a convenient shortcut: it can make a demanding decision-making process feel manageable and, in some cases, make planning feel possible. She argued that the findings show how travel technology could become more inclusive by being designed around the different ways people think, plan and make decisions. That framing points toward what the researchers call cognitively inclusive travel technology, systems that accommodate diverse cognitive styles rather than assuming a single idealised planner who processes information linearly and effortlessly.

The researchers highlight one group that could benefit substantially from such design thinking: neurodivergent travellers, for whom the open-ended, multi-constraint nature of trip planning can be especially taxing. At the same time, they are careful to note that cognitive overload is not a niche problem. Any traveller can hit a planning wall when a trip involves large amounts of information, multiple constraints and interconnected decisions. A family coordinating a multi-generational holiday, a traveller managing a medical requirement abroad, or simply anyone facing a saturated search-results page all encounter the same underlying difficulty: the working memory required to hold a trip in mind exceeds what is comfortably available.

Dr Bora Kim, Associate Professor in Surrey Hospitality and Tourism Management and co-author of the study, offered a forward-looking perspective on what this means for the travel industry. The real promise of AI in travel planning, she argued, is not simply speed or convenience. The same tool can support different travellers at different points of difficulty while allowing them to retain control over their decisions. She called for travel technologies designed to provide personalised cognitive and emotional support while protecting travellers’ autonomy, a formulation that treats AI as an assistant operating under human direction rather than an agent making purchases and itineraries on its own initiative.

The study’s conceptual framework arrives at a moment when generative AI is rapidly being woven into consumer travel platforms, from airline booking assistants to chatbot concierges. By identifying where AI support genuinely helps, reducing coordination burden, enabling reflection, and sustaining momentum through to completion, and where human control must remain, the Surrey research offers designers and travel companies a map of the terrain. It also offers travellers a reassuring message: the goal of AI in holiday planning is not to choose your trip for you, but to carry enough of the administrative weight that choosing becomes enjoyable again. For the overwhelmed majority who have abandoned a booking page at midnight, that distinction may prove to be the difference between another unrealised plan and a departure date on the calendar.

Subject of Research: Generative AI as cognitive scaffolding in travel decision-making and holiday planning

Article Title: AI could make holiday planning easier for overwhelmed travellers

Article References: AI could make holiday planning easier for overwhelmed travellers. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: generative AI, travel planning, decision-making, cognitive load, University of Surrey, Journal of Travel Research, tourism technology, neurodivergent travellers, cognitive scaffolding, consumer behaviour, AI assistants, travel industry