How does generative AI shape millennials’ customer experience in the pre-purchase stage of travel planning

With the development and popularization of AI technology, millennial consumers are integrating GenAI into their pre-purchase travel planning process, gradually changing their information gathering and decision-making methods. Especially in the post-pandemic era, geopolitical tensions and consumers' growing sensitivity to safety and risk issues have extended the pre-purchase stage. However, current research on the interaction between GenAI and consumers largely adopts a utilitarian perspective, primarily focusing on how GenAI improves consumer efficiency. The customer experience facilitated by interacting with GenAI in highly uncertain travel planning scenarios remains to be explored. Therefore, this study aims to use a qualitative research method based on the five-dimensional customer experience framework and customer journey theory to conduct 12 semi-structured interviews with millennial consumers using GenAI for travel planning, in order to reveal their evolving psychological paths and consumption behaviors during the co-creation process with GenAI.

This study finds that consumers actively integrate GenAI into their decision-making process when faced with highly uncertain travel planning scenarios. GenAI is not only a hyper-touchpoint in the AI era but also an operant resource that consumers can access. GenAI redistributes consumers' cognitive tasks during the information-gathering stage, changing the role of consumers from information seekers to information supervisors. However, consumers do not enjoy the seamless experience facilitated by GenAI without any burden; instead, they constantly reflect during the co-creation process. While acknowledging the stable emotional experience and interactive freedom that GenAI can initiate, they are also clearly aware of the boundaries of human-machine interaction and the costs associated with the efficient operation of GenAI.

This study contributes to the theory of customer experience and customer journey under the pre-purchase travel planning context. First, it builds upon the customer journey theory, supplementing it with recognizing GenAI as a hyper-touchpoint that integrates multiple touchpoints and is a key support for consumers' co-creation process. It does not change consumer behavior in the pre-purchase stage, but reshapes the rhythm of consumer behavior and helps consumers to pursue the customer experience they are actively looking for. Second, this study supplements the definition of customer experience by suggesting consumers as active beings, capable of constructing choices to cope with uncertainty and the unknown and thus the customer experience is not entirely non-deliberate or unintentional, but rather intentional, reflective, and actively pursued and expected by consumers. Third, the interaction between consumers and GenAI also supplements the understanding of the relationships between the various dimensions of the five-dimensional framework, indicating that the experience of each dimension is intertwined and mutually influential. Finally, this study reexamines the ordinary customer experience in the travel planning context, showing that consumers' pursuit of emotional stability, reduced uncertainty, and a sense of safety and control during the travel planning stage is also an important aspect of ordinary customer experience.

The study also provides managerial implications for the tourism industry. First, all tourism-related service providers, including travel agencies, tourist attractions, restaurants, and hotels, should provide the most detailed, comprehensive, and accurate information possible on their official websites and relevant online platforms that can be easily identified by GenAI and delivered to consumers. Second, service providers should also publicly disclose information of concern to consumers regarding personal safety and risk warnings on their online platforms, enabling consumers to access this information during the travel planning stage. Third, managers need to ensure consumers have the freedom and space to make their own decisions when integrating GenAI into service enhancement. Finally, all stakeholders in the tourism industry should collaborate with GenAI to build an information network serving tourism and regularly submit verified and updated content to the GenAI platform to ensure a transparent, smooth, and authoritative information channel.