The human algorithm – charting SA’s AI-powered tourism future

BBy Siya Mthethwa, Chief Strategy Officer at South African Tourism

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the tourism industry. Recent data from EY highlights that 60% of travellers in the Asia-Pacific region are already using AI tools to research and book their destinations.

For South Africa’s tourism and business events sectors, which are built on human experience, this booming technology presents both significant opportunities and strategic challenges. However, AI is not a silver bullet. It is a powerful tool that, when wielded with precision and foresight, will serve to amplify the sector’s greatest asset: our people.

This makes our next move a critical, non-negotiable moment. The question is no longer whether we should adopt AI, but why we haven’t adopted it faster.

The new front door

The days of relying solely on physical travel agencies and paper brochures are long gone. Today’s traveller, whether for leisure or business, lives, dreams, researches, and books on their digital devices. Their journey begins on a search engine, their inspiration comes from social media, and their navigation is guided by their phone.

Increasingly, their first point of contact is a generative AI tool. They are asking chatbots, “I have a budget of $2 500. Plan me a two-week trip to South Africa that includes wildlife and cultural experiences”. This is our country’s new front door. And this is where our greatest challenge lies.

The “hallucination” risk

AI, in its current form, essentially scrapes the internet for information. As a nation, we have an abundance of world-class products and authentic cultural experiences, from our pristine wildlife parks and glamping sites to our vibrant townships and historical landmarks. But if these products are not accurately, robustly, and credibly represented on digital platforms, the AI will not find them. Worse, it will “hallucinate”.

An AI tool will rarely say, “I don’t know”. Instead, it will invent information to fill the gap. It might fabricate details about an experience, misrepresent a location, or provide false information about an experience. This creates a “crisis of expectation” – a traveller arrives in our country expecting something that doesn’t exist, leading to disappointment and, ultimately, a negative review that damages our brand.

Our most urgent task, therefore, is to collectively ensure our digital tourism footprint is available, up-to-date, and credible. This demands a new, practical coalition, one that leverages real-time data from local establishments and tour operators, while creating quality experiences.

Driving digital innovation by nurturing home-grown innovation

This is not just a theoretical challenge but a call to action that the Minister of Tourism Patricia de Lille is already answering. A prime example is the recent G20 Tourism Hackathon, an initiative empowering the next generation of innovators to shape the future of our tourism sector.

The hackathon challenged South Africa’s brightest young minds to develop AI-powered solutions for key industry gaps, from rural inclusion to heritage preservation. The winning

team, The Catalysts, proposed the “Hologram Hub”. This groundbreaking project directly tackles the risk of AI “hallucination” by creating a robust, interactive digital footprint for artisans and cultural heritage sites that are often invisible online.

Their solution envisions a community hub where local artisans can sell their crafts, integrated with a technological centre featuring holograms of historical figures. An accompanying augmented reality app would allow a tourist to point their phone at a piece of beadwork to learn its story or at a landmark to discover its history, laying an authentic, verifiable digital layer over our physical world.

By investing in and nurturing such home-grown solutions, we build the credible digital footprint our country needs. This is about empowering our people to tell our own stories through technology, ensuring the information AI tools find is authentic, rich, and rooted in community.

Putting it all together – A 2027 vision

So, what does this integrated future look like?

Picture a cricket fan in India, planning their trip for the 2027 Cricket World Cup in South Africa. They use our new Electronic Travel Authorisation (e-visa) system, a digital collaboration with the country’s Department of Home Affairs, for seamless approval.

Simultaneously, they task a generative AI with building an itinerary, saying, “I’m following the Bangladesh team, I want to experience wildlife, and I’m curious about South Africa’s history”. Instantly, AI aligns their accommodation with the team’s fixture list, suggests a trip to the Kruger National Park between matches, and maps out a historical tour of Soweto.

Upon arrival, their phone is not just a communication device; it is a tour guide in their pocket. As they walk through Soweto, a notification pings: “You are 200 meters from Nelson Mandela’s former home”. Enhanced by AR glasses, they can look at the house and see historical photos and key facts overlaid on their vision, providing context and depth without intrusion. They walk down Vilakazi Street, the only street in the world to have housed two Nobel Peace Prize winners, and their device shares this remarkable story.

Throughout their trip, an Internet of Things (IoT) application provides a subtle layer of security, sending periodic, automated “I’m safe and enjoying the sights” messages to their loved ones back home, directly addressing safety perceptions and providing peace of mind. This entire experience – seamless, personalised, and deeply immersive – transforms their visit from a simple sports tour into an unforgettable life experience.

Welcoming the human-AI symbiosis

This technological shift inevitably raises the fear of job displacement. Will AI replace our tour guides, our travel agents, and our front-desk staff? My analysis is an emphatic “no”. Tourism is, and will always be, a human-interaction experience.

AI will not replace these jobs; it will reimagine them. Global analysis supports this. A recent Forbes article on how AI is transforming travel notes that this new era is already “creating new roles such as AI Travel Specialists, AI Data Analysts, and AI Experience Designers”. The true role of this technology is to automate mundane, repetitive tasks – like processing bookings or generating initial itineraries – to free up our human workforce.

The future of South African tourism is not a cold, automated landscape. It is a vibrant, collaborative ecosystem where cutting-edge technology handles the logistics, while our people – our nation’s greatest asset – provide the heart, the soul, and the unforgettable human connection that truly makes South Africa a world-class destination.

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