WION Iconic Tourism Summit & Awards 2026: How AI is reshaping visas, bookings and travel, experts share insights
WION Iconic Tourism Summit & Awards 2026: How AI is reshaping visas, bookings and travel, experts share insights Photograph: (WION)
AI is transforming travel by streamlining visa checks, bookings and customer service. Experts at WION Tourism Summit 2026 discussed AI’s potential while stressing the need for human intervention. now.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionised travel and journeys across the globe, making bookings and visa services a unique and easy experience for customers. Vinay Malhotra, Head of Strategic Global Partnerships, VFS Global, highlighted how the deployment of AI has made the process of travel much easier.
AI makes visa processing easier
Speaking at the panel discussion on ‘Tech Frontiers Reshaping the Journey’ at the WION Iconic Tourism Summit & Awards 2026 in New Delhi on Wednesday (Sep 23), Malhotra talked about how AI has made the visa process and other travel-related processes for customers much easier. He also explained that while some people use technology to tamper with passports and other documents, technology deployed by VFS Global can detect any mismatch. He also said that synthetic documents and deepfakes can easily be caught by technology.
“We recently created a system called IDP, or intelligent document processing. What this system can do is, if you submit your passport application and you’ve tampered with the passport, the system can detect that something is wrong with the passport. If your flights and hotel details do not match, or there is a mismatch with an application, it will bring that out,” he said. “When we receive a bank statement about 100-15 pages, and the applicant feels, ‘oh nothing can go wrong, and if there is a little mismatch or a tallying error, nobody will find out’. But AI helps us find that out too.”
Why human intervention still matters
Anil Parashar, Executive Director at ITQ Technologies Pvt Ltd, shared why human intervention is necessary while deploying technology.
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“What technology does is make a travel partner look what they are. What I mean is that it makes them look good with technology, and it makes you look worse with technology. And the question we are all being driven by is: what can technology do? The question we need to be asking is: what technology cannot do? Because what technology cannot do will be done by humans. That strength of humans is only available to humans,” he said.
“The role of humans, the role of travel partners, is more relevant today with technology, not less. It is only how we use and we focus on the customer and let the technology do the simple tasks,” Parashar added. “Good technology removes questions and steps in a process. Bad technology adds one more form.”
Technology should not create more hurdles
He added that while web check-ins and eGates have made things easier for customers, we need to be cautious about how technology is being brought in.
“If you try to bring technology for the sake of technology, you’re going to be in trouble... Technology will work when the other infrastructure is there. You need to have WiFi, a battery in the phone, Bluetooth, and connectivity in remote destinations. We need to be conscious and aware of all of that,” Parashar said. “We are having a big challenge today. In a contactless process, some things are great, no question. But things which are adding to confusion and duplication are a challenge.”
“All I’m saying is that technology is great when you take away some steps, but if, in the process of technology, you end up making life difficult for the customer, it is no good,” he said.
AI could connect the entire travel ecosystem
Achin Sharma, Chief Digital Officer, WAISL (GMR Cargo), said, “The biggest difference AI can make is in reducing the friction in the entire journey. In my view, these have been examples of leveraging AI in a rather standalone mode. But AI can actually be leveraged to integrate the entire travel ecosystem.”
He further added, “Right now, if you look at the traveller, he visits one site to book his air tickets, generally speaking, and then another website for the hotels, local transport, and so on and so forth. That’s largely the pain that he goes through prior to booking his travel... AI, in my view, can actually integrate this entire value chain in terms of even predicting something might go wrong.”
AI as a support tool for customer service
Abhilash Kalathil Ramesh, Executive Director, Kairali Ayurvedic Group, also talked about how his company has deployed AI. He shared that while his firm prefers customer interactions through human agents, the technology is beneficial for taking customer queries when a human executive is not available at the moment. In this case, AI can step in and inform the customer that a human executive will be available to speak with them soon.
The WION Iconic Tourism Summit & Awards 2026, presented by VFS Global in association with Red Hat Communications, brings together voices from government, diplomacy, aviation, hospitality and technology to examine the forces reshaping global travel, including mobility, tourism infrastructure, technology and changing traveller expectations.
