"Making travel plans" is a time-consuming and energy-intensive process for many travelers. Social media travel notes, recommendations from travel agency staff, and "red-flag warnings" from friends and family can lead to information overload. Can artificial intelligence (AI) take over the task of planning trips?

Recently, the world's first general AI agent Manus, developed by a Chinese company, was released, capturing attention across the tech industry. According to a demo video, Manus can create detailed itineraries for travelers who love historical sites, prefer hiking tours, or plan to propose during their trip, providing travel guidebooks with maps, introductions to attractions, and helpful tips.

Thoughtful "AI travel companions" are becoming increasingly accessible. On a smart tourism platform launched by Yangzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, features like smart guidance, itinerary planning, and interactive experiences are all available, meeting the travel needs of different tourists.

After users input information like the number of travelers, travel duration, budget, and preferences, the platform can customize personalized itineraries for users traveling in Yangzhou, along with ticket purchase links for relevant attractions, providing great convenience for tourists.

Many tourists now encounter AI-enabled digital avatars during their tours. At over 40,000 service points including A-level tourist attractions, hotels, and major commercial areas in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, the digital tourism ambassador "Hang Xiaoyi" offers guide services, performance inquiries, warnings for the flow of people, ticket reservations, and more.

Recently, "Hang Xiaoyi" integrated DeepSeek's AI model, becoming more intelligent in inquiries and interactions. It can also tell cultural stories and recommend related tourism products, such as tea culture experiences and poetry study tours.

File photo shows a tourist using the digital tourism ambassador "Hang Xiaoyi" at the West Lake scenic area in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.

Industry insiders point out that AI technologies have tremendous advantages in accurately identifying tourist preferences. The integration of AI with tourism allows more travelers to enjoy personalized travel experiences.

In addition to serving as a "smart assistant" for tourists, AI also drives the transformation and upgrading of the tourism industry. In recent years, tourism enterprises have introduced AI technologies and integrated general-purpose large models, offering higher-quality tourism services to travelers and improving their own resource allocation and operational management efficiency.

As an important part of the tourism industry, hotels are also becoming increasingly smart thanks to the application of AI, the Internet of Things, and other technologies. Data shows that the number of smart hotels nationwide is growing at a rate of 10-15 percent annually.

Wearing virtual reality (VR) headsets and holding controllers, visitors at an immersive digital exhibition of the Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Dunhuang, northwest China's Gansu Province, can explore the digital re-creation of Cave 285 at the grottoes, admire murals up close in high definition, and interact with figures depicted in the murals. They can gain a new experience of visiting the grottoes with the help of VR, augmented reality (AR), extended reality (XR), AI engines, and other technologies.

A visitor uses virtual reality equipment at an immersive digital exhibition of the Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Dunhuang, northwest China's Gansu Province. (Xinhua/Lang Bingbing)

Through the deep integration of culture and technologies, the profound Dunhuang culture is presented to visitors in a more immersive and interactive way, enhancing their sense of connection to Dunhuang's cultural heritage. This approach simultaneously satisfies tourists' social needs for sharing their travel experiences and creates new paths for Dunhuang's culture-tourism integration, cultural dissemination, and preservation.

Whether enabling visitors to explore scenic spots through virtual avatars, automatically generating digital cultural products, or creating personalized travel journals as souvenirs, AI-driven innovations are unlocking the potential of more cultural tourism IPs. These advancements provide endless possibilities for the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional culture.