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Kristin Hancock's advice for training AI to sound like you, one walk at a time.
About three in four travel advisors now use AI, according to Travel Market Report’s 2025 Outlook on AI Trends. Yet 17% worry it makes the client experience less personal.
So why does this work for some advisors and not others? Kristin Hancock, owner of Bright Life Travel Co. and a 2026 ASTA Emerging Leaders Award recipient presented by Travefy, says the difference is what you teach it before you ask it for anything.
Her fix is simple. Go for a walk.
Go for a walk you say? Yes. Simply take your phone, open Claude or ChatGPT, and talk. Tell it you want it to learn your business, and ask it to interview you. Kristin says it’s surprisingly good at coming up with questions, and it’ll ask you to clarify anything it doesn’t understand.
Speaking is much faster than typing and it pulls out details you’d never think to write down. (Quick heads up: voice chats do have a time limit so if you hit yours, just send it what you have, start again and keep going.)
It also removes the two biggest barriers in the TMR survey. Among advisors not using AI, 49% said they haven’t had time to learn it and 45% said they don’t know how it works. A walk needs no course and no new tool, just a phone and a conversation.
You don’t need to get it all in one walk. Kristin said it might take about five but make sure the AI tool knows these three things:
Kristin’s voice is warm, a little sarcastic, and never negative. Even when she doesn’t love a product, her AI knows to stay kind about it.
Kristin’s biggest worry about AI isn’t the technology, it’s the people skipping this critical step. A well-trained assistant should know your business and the way you do, and it should push back when something doesn’t match your standards.
Once it’s trained, it can help with:
One rule at Bright Life: AI never writes what the team wants to say, the advisor does that part.
Kristin thinks of automation as reliable touchpoints. Every cruise or destination has things you must tell clients, and automation makes sure none gets missed, in your voice.
Personal moments still happen. When Kristin sent a client heading to Kauai her recommended-activities email, the client replied with a question about an activity that wasn’t on the list. That became a real conversation with her advisor and the automation part made it easier to have.
In the TMR survey, 63% of advisors said ready-to-use prompts built for travel advisors would help them most. Here are three to start with.
“I want you to learn my business. I’m a travel advisor, and I’ll tell you about my clients, my process, and how I like to communicate. Ask me questions one at a time, and ask me to clarify anything you’re unsure about.”
“Based on what I’ve told you, describe my brand voice: how I sound, words I’d use, and things I’d never say. I’ll correct anything that’s off.”
“Here’s my workflow for [trip type]. These are the pain points I keep running into: [list them]. Where are the gaps?”
Then talk. Repeat as needed.
Kristin’s walks are really an exercise in giving AI context. It’s the same idea behind how we build at Travefy: AI is only as useful as what it understands about your travelers, trips, and business. That’s why Smart Import starts with your actual supplier confirmations, not a blank prompt.
Listen to the full conversation with Kristin on The Lounge by Travefy podcast.
Kristin is one of eight 2026 recipients of the ASTA Emerging Leaders Award, presented by Travefy. Nominations for the next class are open now through November 3, 2026. Anyone 45 and under is eligible, and you can nominate yourself or someone you admire.
Nominate at emergingleaders.asta.org.
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