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Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

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Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#51

Post by CharlieDigital »

dangus wrote: post #39
CharlieDigital wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder of Viator had an interesting take on this in an interview (How I Built This [0]). The gist is that the people who deeply research and plan, they create this perfect vision of the trip in their head. When you actually go on the trip, things can go wrong; weather is bad, destination was crowded, you got sick, etc. But years later, the perfect version of the trip and the actual version of the trip get mixed…

I think this if taken too far sounds a lot like work. One of my favorite trips involved planning as far as a train trip and booking a hostel. But beyond that my group basically blew off every plan we had and hung around the hostel because they had a really nice free pool table and really good cheap food and booze. That is probably one of my top three trips of my life. I find my memories compressed because it was basi…

It is work!

My wife and I were struggling with this doing it in Google Docs; it was absolutely a chore!

So I ended up creating a small (free) app to do this: https://turas.app

The Chrome extension[0] is particularly good (also free) because it lets you just do it all in Google Maps. I'd definitely recommend that you start with the extension if you're curious since it's really easy to use (the full web app is definitely more "power user" focused).

    > Making a daily log sounds miserable to me but then again I strongly dislike journaling.
This is one of those things that I think we regret later because it's always so hard to remember the details of those trips. So part of the goal of Turas was to make it easy to take a planned itinerary and make it into a "story". Here are a few examples: https://turas.app/s/japan-x-taiwan/BtEjycbA and https://turas.app/s/6-days-in-terceira-portugal/naAag5s3StTM... Basically, I made Turas so I could do the planning and then write the story using that same plan.

I'm in my 40's now and remember very little of the trips that I took in my early teens with my dad (who has now passed). Where did we go? What did we see? Where was this cool place that I only vaguely remember? Everything is kind of haze now. So the hope with these stories is that my kids can look back and really recall these adventures and places that they went. Not just in small snapshots in a social media feed, but as a singular , encapsulated story like this. If people ask how our trip was or they ask for tips and ideas, I just share these with them.

[0] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/turasapp/lpfijfdbgo...

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#52

Post by CharlieDigital »

stavros wrote: post #47
dangus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this if taken too far sounds a lot like work. One of my favorite trips involved planning as far as a train trip and booking a hostel. But beyond that my group basically blew off every plan we had and hung around the hostel because they had a really nice free pool table and really good cheap food and booze. That is probably one of my top three trips of my life. I find my memories compressed because it was basi…

It's great that you had a fun time hanging out with friends, but spending a few days with friends around a pool table and bar isn't really a trip, it's a gathering. Trips tend to be centered around the place you're going to, with experiences you can only have at that place, and nowhere else.

    > Trips tend to be centered around the place you're going to, with experiences you can only have at that place, and nowhere else.
I think this is a great delineation.

For me, because I'm traveling as a family of 4, the cost of any trip is significant. We did a Japan/Taiwan trip this past winter and the total cost with flights was probably in the $12-14k range. At this level of expense, I'm going to plan as many of the high level details as possible to really maximize that experience and reduce headaches in the moment of travel.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#53

Post by jjj123 »

chvid wrote: post #22

Why would anyone use an AI trip planner? If I go for a vacation, planning it and deciding what not to plan is a part of the joy of doing it. Though a big problem at the moment is manipulation of online reviews and recommendations; and as far as I can tell AI is making that worse.

I despise planning. I put it off until the last minute and usually have no plans as a result. I’m mostly okay with that, but could see AI planning filling that gap for me and would make it easier for me to schedule more complex trips across multiple countries.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#54

Post by dangus »

stavros wrote: post #47
dangus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this if taken too far sounds a lot like work. One of my favorite trips involved planning as far as a train trip and booking a hostel. But beyond that my group basically blew off every plan we had and hung around the hostel because they had a really nice free pool table and really good cheap food and booze. That is probably one of my top three trips of my life. I find my memories compressed because it was basi…

It's great that you had a fun time hanging out with friends, but spending a few days with friends around a pool table and bar isn't really a trip, it's a gathering. Trips tend to be centered around the place you're going to, with experiences you can only have at that place, and nowhere else.

Are you gatekeeping my definition of a trip?

It was definitely a trip. We spent three days on a train and saw scenery. We saw some local sights but were relaxed about it and yes we spent a lot of time chilling in the hostel.

We couldn’t have had that experience elsewhere.

We also met other travelers.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#55

Post by dangus »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #52
stavros wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great that you had a fun time hanging out with friends, but spending a few days with friends around a pool table and bar isn't really a trip, it's a gathering. Trips tend to be centered around the place you're going to, with experiences you can only have at that place, and nowhere else.

> Trips tend to be centered around the place you're going to, with experiences you can only have at that place, and nowhere else. I think this is a great delineation. For me, because I'm traveling as a family of 4, the cost of any trip is significant. We did a Japan/Taiwan trip this past winter and the total cost with flights was probably in the $12-14k range. At this level of expense, I'm going to plan as many of th…

On the other hand a lot of people who book expensive trips to places like beach destinations, resorts, and cruises want to escape the daily grind of planning out and organizing their daily life. They want to just show up and relax and that is completely valid.

Also, I find that a lot of times planned activities ahead of time look a lot different than what you find when you get somewhere.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#56

Post by [deleted] »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #51
dangus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this if taken too far sounds a lot like work. One of my favorite trips involved planning as far as a train trip and booking a hostel. But beyond that my group basically blew off every plan we had and hung around the hostel because they had a really nice free pool table and really good cheap food and booze. That is probably one of my top three trips of my life. I find my memories compressed because it was basi…

It is work! My wife and I were struggling with this doing it in Google Docs; it was absolutely a chore! So I ended up creating a small (free) app to do this: https://turas.app The Chrome extension[0] is particularly good (also free) because it lets you just do it all in Google Maps. I'd definitely recommend that you start with the extension if you're curious since it's really easy to use (the full web app is definite…

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#57

Post by stogot »

eudhxhdhsb32 wrote: post #17
throw098320923 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android app, USB dongle with HDMI capture card. Screenshot goes to OCR and LLM. There is a virtual USB HID mouse build on Arduino that clicks on links.

Wouldn't it be easier to just interact directly with their web interface through an automated browser?

I tried this on another site and got blocked. You need to be aware of how bot detection works

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#58

Post by ghxst »

akdev1l wrote: post #42
ghxst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, there are tons of interesting places in my country that hardly get talked about online outside of my native language. You won’t really find them on the SEO-boosted travel blogs that google likes to return either. I feel like this is where AI could actually be useful.

If it’s not talked about much, it won’t be in the training dataset much

From what I’ve seen, AI can do a solid job of bridging language gaps—though it depends on how it’s set up. The data exists, but it’s often buried in native-language sources. By focusing on local content, like newspapers and forum discussions you can shape a dataset that pulls in more authentic, region-specific data.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#59

Post by ghxst »

cyberlurker wrote: post #41
ghxst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience, there are tons of interesting places in my country that hardly get talked about online outside of my native language. You won’t really find them on the SEO-boosted travel blogs that google likes to return either. I feel like this is where AI could actually be useful.

But… isn’t the AI going to parrot those travel blogs?

That's up to the engineers of said AI, if you goal is to have an AI that doesn't do that then you have multiple ways to achieve that goal.

Re: Airbnb CEO says it's still too early for AI trip planning

#60

Post by CharlieDigital »

dangus wrote: post #55
CharlieDigital wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trips tend to be centered around the place you're going to, with experiences you can only have at that place, and nowhere else. I think this is a great delineation. For me, because I'm traveling as a family of 4, the cost of any trip is significant. We did a Japan/Taiwan trip this past winter and the total cost with flights was probably in the $12-14k range. At this level of expense, I'm going to plan as many of th…

On the other hand a lot of people who book expensive trips to places like beach destinations, resorts, and cruises want to escape the daily grind of planning out and organizing their daily life. They want to just show up and relax and that is completely valid. Also, I find that a lot of times planned activities ahead of time look a lot different than what you find when you get somewhere.

You do the planning beforehand so that you can minimize the thinking while there :)
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