Hays Travel Chair Dame Irene Hays says the company’s ‘single biggest step forward’ in recent times has been to learn about AI.
At the annual retail conference in Greece, Dame Irene said the company’s plans were validated by ABTA’s Holiday Habits 2025-26 report, which revealed the number of people using AI for holiday inspiration has doubled from 4% to 8% in the past year.
Last month Hays Travel appointed Dr Mohsen Ghasempour, Chief AI Officer at Kingfisher Group, as its third non-executive director to help develop the use of data, technology and AI across the company.
During the conference, Traveltek also announced enhancements to Hays Travel’s CRM and Quote Builder, with the use of AI tools.
Dame Irene told Travel Gossip: “In terms of what I think is the single biggest step forward for Hays Travel – and I don’t often say that – is the fact we have tried to learn and understand AI.
“Where we haven’t understood it, we have brought in the very best in class very quickly. With the number of customers consulting AI about a holiday increasing, we need to quickly move down the AI route.”
Dame Irene added that AI will also be able to give insight into customer sentiment.
“In our homeworking and call centre division, we have been using AI to measure customer sentiment from phone calls. The application of understanding our customers better is very exciting,” she explained.
Chief Operating Officer Jonathon Woodall-Johnston added: “AI is like the new Google, we can now see if a customer lands on the Hays Travel website through ChatGPT, so we can track that. We really need to understand how AI is going to prioritise different websites based on content.”
More news from the Hays conference:
Dame Irene has a ‘shopping list’ of 15 new retail locations
Traveltek launches new quote tools at Hays Travel Conference
Hays to boost advertising on streaming platforms, including Netflix, for Peaks
Davina McCall makes surprise appearance at Hays conference in Greece
Hays Travel to host single overseas conference for retail, IG and homeworkers in 2026
