Is AI the Future of Travel? Hype vs. Reality with Delphine

Everybody know Chad PT. So within my business he help me to uh you know for when I want to do prospection to get ideas. So sometime I have some strategy. So I do important like I speak to Chip. He knows me very well and according of my personality he will you know recommend me some stuff and

right well that's a good question isn't it? What is it that chat GP can't do that you can do?

Delin how many languages do you feel comfortable with? Well, I used to have a lot. So, I work with with English and Spanish and of course my French is my native language. I do speak Chinese. If

yes, finishing my studies, I went to China three months.

AI, is it hype or is it help?

Good day and welcome to the show. I'm your host Pete Cooper and our topic is AI hype or help. Today's guest is a friend of mine and business colleague, Deline. Delaine is in the travel business and she's going to tell us about what's happening in AI in the travel business. Also, she happens to be an expert when it comes to languages. Has five languages under her belt. Teaches other people how to speak and gain entry into other countries with language exam skills and training and how AI is going to help. Let's get into it. Welcome Deline, welcome to the show. Very glad to have you here. We met through our network. We got to know each other reasonably well through that network.

We never met personally, but we certainly have met online multiple times. So, Deline, thank you. We're going to be talking about AI, but first of all, I wanted to talk a little bit more about you and uh what you do. So, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us about that?

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's a very pleasure to to be here with you. So actually before telling what I'm doing now, I started it 16 18 years ago to be a private French teacher as a plumb B because I studied a master of marketing and digital media. I couldn't find a job during the financial crisis. So I became a private French teacher and now being about 18 years.

But today I want to tell you about my passion and what I decide to do one day full-time and to do lifestyle ambassadors for a private travel club MWL life standing for making wishes real that help people

to travel more for less thanks to a private platform called a travel advantage help people to save a lot on their hotel and if they wish to get an extra income come or completely change their life promoting this uh travel club. That's

as a summary what I do all day.

Very nice.

And I have to say you have a lovely accent. I am a bit of a Frank Vile. I've tried to learn French multiple times and failed and I might know a few words in French.

Probably just a swear word so I won't say them right now. But I love hearing your accent. You are a born French person. Is that right?

Yes. Suffer France. Yes.

Have you traveled to Canada?

Actually, I went to Canada three years ago and my next trip to Canada will be end of April. So, will become I will go to Montreal and I'm going to visit for the first time um Toronto. Wow. Like time.

Both places are quite close to to here and I've driven to both of them. Montreal and Toronto from here. And uh I love them both. I mean Montreal is fabulous. It's a little bit like uh Europe in North America. Uh, it's a little bit like I could be in somewhere in France.

Just has a really nice cafe feel and people are very liberal and of course there's the language. It was a lot of fun. I can't wait to go again.

It's what I heard. Yes.

Yes. So, Travel Advantage, that's what you're involved in.

Yes. That's the name of a platform. The travel club is making wishes real and the life and I focus on the travel advantage platform because this is where the people can see the platform, the app. So yes, this is uh something is very close to my my heart uh to promote this platform because I do believe this uh this has changed my life. It's changing my life, changing the life of my family, friends.

So I decided and uh to share to the world for the last three years but actually is on a pocket for the last 14 years. So

why would somebody choose travel advantage versus some of the other platforms? Well, in economy, you know, when the people book some holidays, you have different kind of people. You have the people who wants to find someone who take care of everything and they go to travel agency, right? Great. You have a people who are always looking for the best deal, spending a lot of time online comparing, you know, uh, days and hours like, you know, to find the best deal. So, on Travel Advantage, it's much faster and it's cheaper.

More than 80% of the case you will find hotel prices much cheaper than the uh the well-known booking platform and because we're going to speak about AI of course AI help us to go faster for booking for search so that's uh that's right in a t was meeting today

so we're going to get into some AI but one more question about travel advantage why did you pick travel advantage as as your platform to promote over maybe some other option.

I didn't choose travel adventure for travel advantage. I choose a business model.

So I mentioned earlier that being a private French teacher for the last 18 years I become an entrepreneur.

So from employee to entrepreneurs that was the uh specific moment when I I wanted to redesign my life you know and work on my own term. And when COVID arrived, I realized that this entrepreneur model has its limits because I could work from from anywhere I wanted. I could uh work whenever I wanted, but I didn't have a financial stability because when I don't have a clients, I don't have a zero. So, this is where I was looking for opportunity and extra income, passive income. And this is where Travel Advantage and the private club came into my mind because it's a network marketing company. So that's why I didn't choose. They actually they choose me.

So would you call yourself Dolphin a digital nomad?

Decide I always wanted to be this one. I just myself I just life you know like who know I've been living for 10 years in Mexico. I didn't say that in my introduction. So I do believe in a digital nomad. The decision digital nomad is to live wherever you want you know but to live wherever you want if you don't have a money

you know. So I do believe I'm still working to be 100% digital nomad. So to live exactly where I want to to live and to go where exactly what I want to to go and this is my mission to go there and if I want to go to Dubai tomorrow I will go nice month ahead.

That sounds very nomadic.

I mean we have had several guests that are digital nomads. Uh some of them you you can look back through our history who are very quick to move from place to place and trying to make that work with its own set of challenges. Some say it's exhausting, others say it's invigorating and adventurous. But back to the point about you being in Mexico, if you didn't know, I was actually in Mexico for the first time myself over the Christmas break. I was in Cancun and I absolutely loved it. I I loved the weather. We can fly direct from Philly straight down there in 3 hours. We had a beachfront room, beautiful food, beautiful people, and I can't wait to go back. But whereabouts are you based?

So, I'm based in PL Carmen between Cancun and Tulum. [snorts]

Oh, you weren't far from where I was then.

Everybody goes there, you know, PL Carmen in this digital nomad, actually.

Wow. Well, I I really fell in love with Mexico and I couldn't I can't wait to get back there. So, maybe next Christmas. We we just want to get away from the winter here. We've had a very cold winter and it's not getting above freezing very much. So, we had some beautiful warm weather there. Okay. So, let's transition a little bit into AI. So, what's happening in the world in your world when it comes to AI? What are you witnessing?

Look, AI specialist travel advantage.

Actually, two days ago, we had 2026 uh kickoff uh call with uh 10, 000 uh ambassadors around the world. And AI is in agenda. We started one year ago because actually AI we are the first travel booking platform to use to integrate fully AI to make some easier research to run your your holidays. So it's a little by little you know putting more AI into the on the platform to help us to be even more efficient and to make the people uh uh save time. So this is what on the main goal. So we go even faster than three years ago when we didn't have AI. So it's exciting.

So can you talk us through what the user experience is on the platform with with AI and how that's changed?

Are they getting

are they typing out their you know my desires and it goes and looks?

I give you an example.

So for example when you go on a platform whatever is a travel advantage or another another platform you book your hotel and you're looking for activities you don't really know which activities you know what you like so you tend to go to outside the platform Google top 10 things to do in in planet car or in New York

on the platform we have a section when you enter your city you enter your budget how many people you go which kind of things you like you choose about section let's say you want um water activity, historic path, gastronomy, things like that and search and it give you actually a route, you know, which kind of activity you can do.

So then you can see and let on the map the ael with active map how far is it from your hotel. You can choose and maybe you're going to follow all the map or maybe just one or two and then say okay I want to do that and you book directly on the platform because on travel advantage you find everything you need to plan your holiday. So this make you save time because you can see as well the comment of other people who book these tours. So you don't need to search for too long and you don't need to wait to go there uh the place to be a bit ripoff with a price. So you can plan uh thanks to AI.

So this is one of the example and the second biggest example is sometimes you want to go one week to to Santorini between 1 of July and 1 of October. You don't really know when and actually the AI can help you to find the cheapest week between the 1st of July and 1st of August or the cheapest Thursday and Friday if you want to go Thursday and Friday within this period of time. So that's amazing. Always of people looking for the best deal. Of course, we keep that.

So gives you that I guess I'm using the word optimization like uh if I I'll just use my example of being in Cancun.

I didn't want to do anything for the first few days, but then as I sort of rested and got more into the holiday mode, I began to add some more things and it became more and more adventurous as time went by. But it sounds like the AI tool can kind of do that for you. You can say, well, I don't want the first three days to rest. I want to sort of venture out a little bit. I want to maybe the last day I want to drive somewhere and have a car. And so it can help you with optimization of your preferences. Uh in terms yeah saving the time when you prepare your trip actually because then when you're there you have a choice of not doing the activity if you want.

But I do believe that what's time consuming you are so excited to go on holidays and it time takes so much time sometime to prepare. So we want to facilitate this planning and just to keep the excited excitement you know going.

Yeah. Yeah. I've heard of you know people planning it using ChatGPT but I think the benefit that I I clearly see is it's integrated into the platform. So you going the AI is going out and grabbing a lot of other things and bringing them back into the platform and basing it around what is a fixture which is the hotel your accommodation. So, so building I mean when I travel there's two things that I think are fixtures in my mind.

There's the flights and there's the hotels. So I need to get those sorted out and then I can build other things around it and you've got that um those that basis to start with and then you can just build on top of that. Is there an advantage other than that that you see running it off the platform versus just flipping over to ChatGPT or something like that?

Saving a lot on on a hotel booking makes a lot of difference. First of all, I think it's a big advantage. We have as well a loyalty cash back. We have different program, you know, that's great. But the bigger is saving because when we think about hotels, we always think about holidays.

No, hotel it could be part of your business as well. You go to a convention, you go with a 10 of your employees to a convention and you need to pay the hotel and maybe it's just a private room for all. So you know so that's a big advantage in 2026 now to to save on the business expenses and why not using this budget you know to please your team to go more to restaurant to you know to invest more to put this money investing in different area of your business. So it's well known for for saving. Now of course on a platform you have different sections where as well we have a lifestyle um life experience. This is like organized stays where you can meet other people of clubs.

So, you know, when normally you go to the hotel, you have

1, 000 people in a hotel, you don't know anybody, but then you and you can go there and you have maybe like 15 rooms booked just for the people from a club is amazing because you you do like friendship. You make some great connections. So, that's as well another way of of traveling. So, that's the second big advantage as well saving. But another way of traveling especially for the people who who don't travel alone and make new friends new life you know so encouraging encouraging to get out of the comfort zone but to be safe

is it is so is the club part of the travel advantage.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Exactly.

Actually the um the the club the private club and their tool is a travel advantage. They booking they own the So the travel advantage is a agency actually travel agency their tool and the club. Yes. So we are part of a club. Yes.

That would that would have been great. I mean one of the things I noticed in Cancun is just how international it was. We were sitting next to people from Europe, from the US, from Mexico, from India, from China, Japan. Um and you could look around the room and say, "Wow, there's people coming from all over the world. " It would have been fun to have a segue to introduce myself. Oh, you always travel advantage. Where you from?

We actually didn't meet anybody for the six nights over there. When I say we didn't meet it, we did actually talk to people casually, but we didn't sort of um you know meet them multiple times or do anything like as an activity with them. And I think this could break the ice a little bit. So I think that's that's a

I do believe that everybody now wants to to belong to a club. You know, we are in this is where we met a club of entrepreneurs around the world to um to recommend each other business and make like a connection around the world. So I'm part of a networking clubs but I'm part as well about with a travel club you know.

So it's

well I mean I'm I'm actually kind of very interested. I've got bunch of travel of my own booked up this year. So we should talk after this about um what I got to do to to join the the club. All right. Join the club.

I just warn you.

You will spend your time traveling and just to let you know when you start this is you know opening opportunities and when you work online as well we're talking about you know my uh my path as well when you are 100% because I'm digital nomad but I will say I'm a digital person I work online so I'm changing country I'm I'm in France I'm working three days ago I was in Poland in two weeks I will be in Miami so that's a great thing and um sometimes I I go to hotel sometimes No. So that's the the good part of my

So I mean it sounds to me like you're a digital nomad even if you don't want to fully adopt the term because you're so mobile. If you find

I still consider myself as a teacher.

I still consider myself a teacher because I teach people to enjoy my life. You see what I mean? So I still consider myself you can see I still have my my teaching outfits but yes.

Yes.

So um do you find there's other ways that that AI is helping you live that lifestyle you know not just in travel advantage but

live the lifestyle for me I use a lot of AI but in in every day to make me save time for planning for task uh I'm not good in in I but everybody know so within my business it help me to uh you know for when I want to do prospection to get ideas so sometime I have some strategy so I do important I speak to Cheddy PD he knows me very well and according of my personality he will you know recommend me some stuff so it's more about yes planning sometime I want to plan something but give me recommendations how the way I use AI in my personal

that's a good point I

mean it's the whole ChatGPT phenomenon is is incredible I'm still learning about it myself as we go for me quite recently it's just how much people are now using it to the extent that it's learning learning about them and their preferences and when you start a new topic or a new chat as it's called it's drawing from all that other information that you've already put in there and so I guess to build that up how long have you been using ChatGPT now

I've been using for the last like full-time

two years uh part of my teaching why because you know when you teach French you have a grammar book and you find you know exercise when you ask to check DP can you give me question of this tense

with this kind of vocabulary for someone with advanced level it will no it's more formal I want less formal are more funny it's unlimited so 26 if you're a teacher and if you don't use change well you're you are losing a lot of time and opportunity so me so it's like I'm more even efficient as a teacher because the people take less lesson with me I can help more students but they will spend more time working by themselves elves. So before it was more like three times a week and you study. Now it's like one hour a week and you study more with yourself with like some prompt and chip. You see what I mean?

And the people

master with the right with you when you give them right directions is amazing tool. Yes.

So when you teach people are you face to face for all of the teaching experiences or do you do other things which is

face to face is I mean online. Yeah. Face to face like you actually earlier you're talking about Canada. So specialize in helping uh people getting test of conissance of French which is an exam help them to get a work visa and permanent residency in in Canada. And this is a thanks to someone I met in our um business network. Someone immigration lawyer who who sent me u students who need to because you know now uh French is everywhere in Canada.

This is one of the requirements. There are so many people. So yes, I meet all my students. They are from all around the world but they move to Canada and they want to stay there. So my role is to make sure I help them to succeed with a French exam so they can live a life and at that time they can become a digital nomad.

Right. So what I'm hearing is you you teach people uh with in an online for format like this a zoom type call or a video call. So there's this dialogue back and forward.

ChatGBT is also is sitting there as a kind of text thing. You have to prompt it with questions and you get responses uh in text.

So are you sitting there with ChatGPT live with them or are you doing your

I just teach them the prompt. I just teach the prompt. So when I explain something on grammar as them and I said now you can practice and I teach them the prompt and they can have some conversation. Yes. So me because I'm specialized in helping people be ready for the exams.

We know we need this human touch you know of emotions of like you know just not like a robot asking question because they often examine some role plays so technically they can do with ch but they cannot do the same it's not the same to be with a teacher with ch so whatever chp can do for me I leave it do it and and encourage so then we can focus on something that chip cannot do um cannot do and I think

all right well that's a good question isn't it? What is it that chat GP can't do that you can do?

Yeah. [snorts] Yeah. The thing like to give you some grammar some do some grammar you do it ch correct you show me.

So when I see how you improving you know I don't need to spend one hour to be paid to correct your mistake. He correct if you don't understand the mistake I will explain.

So that's the way I can have more students and to help more people you know to be more efficient you know I believe in [clears throat] when we're talking about AI a lot of people will lose their job unfortunately if some teachers think that people going to pay them just to speak for hours just vocabulary grammar exercise like that they are making a big mistake because they will have a drop in in students

well I'm really excited about the idea of learning languages using AI and what you've opened my eyes to it a little bit because I've tried to learn Finnish, would you believe, German, French and it's always been a classroom kind of environment walking into the classroom and I was never

successful with those. I mean I took some challenging languages like Finnish but I also found that my progress was very slow sometimes in a classroom where everyone's got sort of advanced knowledge of the language and I'm not able to keep up or maybe I'm going ahead in other areas. So the classroom kind of to me was getting in the way of my ability to learn. But now with these tools which is of course the video but also ChatGPT it's almost getting accelerated now.

Yes.

Yeah

definitely we we learn languages much faster than before and the most important you need to enjoy.

It's like everything if you enjoy something if we make it easier

it's very important that my job I'm magician I make the French grammar easy. No excuse that but I do believe I do so and so the people enjoy they learn faster you know and they they do it's a team work you know it's really a team so I do believe that you know with AI and teacher is a good combination to use both just with app you need like like a sport you do sport and you want to to do a competition when you don't have a coach

it's so good to go to the gym you can but you might take longer and it will take you a lot of efforts and frustration. I do believe so.

Also, I think you can end up negatively training yourself.

So, I've been taking some golf lessons after 20 years of playing golf. Finally took some lessons and I've been practicing all the wrong things. So, he's trying to coach me. It's very hard to unlearn something that you've learned incorrectly. You know, it's better to learn it correctly the first time and reinforce. So, I think that's why you kind of need mentors and coaches. Now, Babel and other apps, how do you feel about those? I don't use these apps at all. I just leave my teaching. I just do try GPT and I'm very, you know, like a beginner with with this kind of app. I have so many things I would like to know.

But, you know, when you find something works, you make the job,

you know, when I will uh well, I will meet some challenges. I will look for for something else. So, for now,

when I put JPT, I have my paid membership and I'm happy with with that. I don't use app at all.

So would you recommend someone try to use an app to help them

to help them? Yeah. To start to do a vocabulary uh to help them conversely.

Okay.

Yeah, definitely. But to rely on that, not to rely on that because we have we heard about for languages Dualingo and repeating it repeating.

So it's good for someone for example who never learned a foreign language before and they need like rotating repeating someone who already know German and Spanish and they learn French okay you say one time and they remember so it will you can slow down it's about how experience are you with a foreign languages so if you don't have encourage to go doing little by little if you put two free it's a loss of time you lose your

how many languages do you feel comfortable with

well I used to have a lot so I work with with English and Spanish and of course my French is my native language but I do speak Chinese uh before yes finishing my studies I went to China three months this is where I get

the taste for foreign for um uh travel it was something else than just one hour from home like uh at the border to speaks Chinese I take lessons and good example I study by myself and guess what? I don't get motivated. So I call my teacher. I don't have time. So that's is a matter of discipline. I studied three years for three years a language. I used to live in in UK. I learn Italian. So for work I just use Spanish and English but I do understand five languages. Yes.

Yes. I was going to count up to five. Wow. That's incredible.

Understanding what is about and you know having a job interview is two different things.

Yeah.

I always joke that I have three languages which is English, Australian and American.

English doesn't count you know I speak foreign languages that's why I say I speak too because French is obvious you know except with some people kind of talk you know but um yes I do believe that people more and more actually French people we are not good in English at all you know this system now I look like back how I learn English um 35 30 years ago I wish I had what I have how back then you know

all right in terms of the tools that you have learned

of a tool of excitement of a yes tools yes

so there's a new tool that uh that I experimented with and it's actually we got a podcast done it where my colleague Julian speaks German and we did a zoom call and we used the iPhone 17

which I newly acquired and the earpods and he spoke to me in German hear it in English and then say something back in English and give it back to him in German um and it actually worked it worked actually surprisingly well. We talked about playing golf and and joked back and forth and I thought that would be great to use uh when I was on vacation in in Mexico. There's so much background noise and quite often what's happening at try and talk to the barman in a noisy environment um very very difficult to try and use this technology in those environments. I think if there's a quiet shop that you went into, you could probably do it a few years ago. You know, I started a few years ago.

I do believe another version are are much better and definitely can help. Of course, it depend for what you need French uh French, German or English. If for traveling is amazing if you need to prepare an exam

for immigration and you need to pass the exam.

It's kind you see what I mean? So again, it's like you have different reason for why you you will learn the languages. So I do believe that's amazing to be able to translate. You know when I went to China I have my my dictionary paper dictionary you know.

Do you?

Yes dictionary

a bit of anecdote.

So I was 23 22 and was with Japanese and the Japanese they have a little digital computer you know they were like doing like that and me I have my pepper and actually what they had I had had it seven years later you know. So this is how the Japanese was learning Chinese and me I was with my my um normal paper dictionary.

So again say oh at that time if I had that you know it's

yeah yeah I mean I think the language translation is something that's really great uh where AI has really made some huge impact u I mean I can literally get it translated any website around the world can be translated into English just like that as Google had that for years now we got so many other tools that are helpful to us where's the future going I think particularly with AI in language translation do you have a a sense about that.

I do believe that we don't imagine yet how great is going to be as long you use AI wisely.

You know when we have the internet everybody was internet say how it's going to be going to control the world when you wisely there's no problem you always have a people using the wrong way. I do believe AI is the same. You know, when I go on holidays and I post my p pictures, it's me

on a beach, on a port, in a city center, I don't use AI. I know people use like I don't need that. I do believe I'm in a world of like when what is true, what is not true. Trust authenticity is good. That's why in my business of travel, we can use AI for facilitate, for the planning, but the connection, the experience, that's a human and Very well put, Veline.

I think sharing experiences is a very human thing and it helps us connect, it helps us live our lives with joy, connection. We're social creatures and I think if we try to fake something or create something with AI which is not genuinely us, we're going to break down that that connection. I think that's a very good insight, Deline. Let's use it as a tool to help us with the planning and that the you know, I guess interfacing with the digital world. There's so much information out there that could help us plan our trip better. Let's get AI to help filter that and and manage it and focus it into what we want. That's a very good insight

that some people might get burned.

You know, when you have too many, you know, sometime you want to go away from your phone and the internet and AI is the same. When you look some content, you look some videos. Oh, it's AI. Yes. Like you you you scroll and you say what did I consume like content from content creator or AI and then sometime like I'm going away you know because it's bit tempted to to lose time and lose time for for something who is not real sometimes so but I do believe that if you use wisely

you are the one controlling you know your life so I'm not afraid I will embrace it I I I use I make the most of it and uh but I will always use it carefully definitely.

Yeah.

Well, I think this is a really good segue. Delphin, is there anything you wanted to bring up and talk about on the podcast today?

Oh, I would like to say thank you so much for the opportunity. I really enjoyed and thank you so much for speaking slowly to me.

Amazing.

Maybe my brain doesn't go that fast. So,

thank you. Thank you so much. It was a great opportunity for me, you know, to to get out of the comfort zone because I never did. So, thank you so much. And

well, you're a wonderful guest, Deline. But we have one more question for you before you go. AI, is it hype or is it help?

It's help.

Help. Help. Help as as long you use it wisely. So that's my best friend.

Make it your best friend. You know, the best friend trust him and you know, you have a limit. You have to trust yourself and you know

the person you trust more than your best friend is yourself. So do the same with AI.

Yes. Yes. Well, I heard somebody say that and they did research at MIT and other places. So it was backed up by proper academic research that those that really get the most out of AI don't see it as a tool. They see it as a partner. In other words, they see it as okay, this is somebody I can talk almost like a person I can talk to. It's not a real person, but it is has that you have that same relationship with it.

Yeah. Delphine, it's been absolute pleasure.

Thank you for joining us.

Same. Thank you.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Deline and her lovely French accent as much as I did. She had some great insights about how AI is helping the travel industry, particularly around how you plan your uh trips. Now we're all familiar with using ChatGPT and how that can help us. But her platform travel advantage has those kinds of tools built into the platform. Um so that gives the sort of leverage up from the platform into planning your itinerary. We also talked a lot about language and how learning new languages can be assisted through uh AI and the tools that are available now.

Some of which um can really leverage and can make learning languages so much faster today. And I think finally we touched on why AI on how AI could be used for benefit and her summary was yes AI is definitely help uh to use it um as a partner um and a tool and it's definitely there and here to stay. Well if you want to know more about Skillion please follow the links in the description below. If you want to be a guest on the show there's also links for that. I hope that helps and thanks for watching.