Travel agents
Travel agents advise travellers upon travel arrangements, make bookings and receive payment for travel arrangements made.
- Employees (UK)
- 19k
- Median annual pay
- £26,426
- Exposure score ?
- 1.1/10 Minimal 9.1/10 Very high strict reading, with tools is 9.1/10 with-tools reading, strict is 1.1/10
- Wage exposure
- £55m £457m
Higher exposure than 60% of the 379 UK occupations we scored.
What this score means.
Most of this role's work is still hard for AI: physical presence, practised skill, judgement in context and direct care, the things that do not turn into text.
If you are in this role
Nothing here is under pressure today, but the frontier moves. Learn enough to direct AI at the paperwork around the job. People in hands-on roles who can do that become unusually useful inside their organisations.
Almost every routine task in this role is within reach of today's models. Roles like this are being rebuilt, usually not by disappearing but by one person using AI to produce what several did.
If you are in this role
Be the person doing the rebuilding. People who learn to run this kind of work with AI become very valuable, and the ones who wait tend to have the change made for them.
Where the work usually starts.
This role's strict reading is low because its top tasks are judgement, not drafting. The three highest-stakes tasks below are still usually where the work starts. Switch to With tools to see what AI plus the right context can take on.
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Examine passenger documentation to determine destinations and to assign boarding passes.
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Trace lost, delayed, or misdirected baggage for customers.
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Check baggage and cargo and direct passengers to designated locations for loading.
These are the most important tasks AI can already handle when paired with the right tools and context. The first wins usually come from building workflows around them. That is the difference between a model that could do the job and one that actually does it inside your business.
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Examine passenger documentation to determine destinations and to assign boarding passes.
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Trace lost, delayed, or misdirected baggage for customers.
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Confer with customers to determine their service requirements and travel preferences.
Every role has three or four places like these. Finding them takes an hour. Turning them into a workflow your team actually uses takes a few days.
Every task in the role.
Every O*NET task for this occupation, split by what AI can do unaided and what still needs a person. Importance is O*NET's 1 to 5 rating of how central each task is.
Tasks via O*NET "Reservation and Transportation Ticket Agents and Travel Clerks" (43-4181.00).
What AI can already do
2 of 21 tasks, unaided
Announce arrival and departure information, using public address systems.
Answer inquiries regarding information, such as schedules, accommodations, procedures, or policies.
What still needs a person
19 of 21 tasks
Examine passenger documentation to determine destinations and to assign boarding passes.
Trace lost, delayed, or misdirected baggage for customers.
Check baggage and cargo and direct passengers to designated locations for loading.
Provide boarding or disembarking assistance to passengers needing special assistance.
Confer with customers to determine their service requirements and travel preferences.
Provide clients with assistance in preparing required travel documents and forms.
Prepare customer invoices and accept payment.
Determine whether space is available on travel dates requested by customers, assigning requested spaces when available.
Assemble and issue required documentation, such as tickets, travel insurance policies, or itineraries.
Maintain computerized inventories of available passenger space and provide information on space reserved or available.
Inform clients of essential travel information, such as travel times, transportation connections, or medical and visa requirements.
Plan routes, itineraries, and accommodation details, and compute fares and fees, using schedules, rate books, and computers.
Open or close information facilities.
Make and confirm reservations for transportation and accommodations, using telephones, faxes, mail, and computers.
Keep information facilities clean during operation.
Provide customers with travel suggestions and information sources, such as guides, directories, brochures, or maps.
Contact customers or travel agents to advise them of travel conveyance changes or to confirm reservations.
Promote particular destinations, tour packages, and other travel services.
Contact motel, hotel, resort, and travel operators to obtain current advertising literature.
Tasks via O*NET "Reservation and Transportation Ticket Agents and Travel Clerks" (43-4181.00).
What AI can already do
17 of 21 tasks, with tools
Examine passenger documentation to determine destinations and to assign boarding passes.
Trace lost, delayed, or misdirected baggage for customers.
Confer with customers to determine their service requirements and travel preferences.
Announce arrival and departure information, using public address systems.
Provide clients with assistance in preparing required travel documents and forms.
Prepare customer invoices and accept payment.
Determine whether space is available on travel dates requested by customers, assigning requested spaces when available.
Assemble and issue required documentation, such as tickets, travel insurance policies, or itineraries.
Maintain computerized inventories of available passenger space and provide information on space reserved or available.
Inform clients of essential travel information, such as travel times, transportation connections, or medical and visa requirements.
Answer inquiries regarding information, such as schedules, accommodations, procedures, or policies.
Plan routes, itineraries, and accommodation details, and compute fares and fees, using schedules, rate books, and computers.
Make and confirm reservations for transportation and accommodations, using telephones, faxes, mail, and computers.
Provide customers with travel suggestions and information sources, such as guides, directories, brochures, or maps.
Contact customers or travel agents to advise them of travel conveyance changes or to confirm reservations.
Promote particular destinations, tour packages, and other travel services.
Contact motel, hotel, resort, and travel operators to obtain current advertising literature.
What still needs a person
4 of 21 tasks
Check baggage and cargo and direct passengers to designated locations for loading.
Provide boarding or disembarking assistance to passengers needing special assistance.
Open or close information facilities.
Keep information facilities clean during operation.
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Related occupations.
Other roles in Caring, leisure and other service occupations, and roles close by exposure.
What it means for your sector.
This role's score comes from Eloundou et al's 2023 task labels, weighted by O*NET importance within each O*NET-SOC code, then bridged to UK SOC 2020 through ISCO-08 (the ONS coding index) and US SOC 2010 (the BLS crosswalk). Employment and median pay come from ONS ASHE Table 14.7a, 2025 provisional, which covers employees only.
Back to the mapMethodologySources (PDF)Built 29 April 2026
Pictures
- "Census pantograph and 1930s keypunches" by U.S. Census Bureau employees, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- "Shepard Barclay, St. Louis lawyer, in his office" by Missouri Historical Society via DPLA, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
- "Accountant's Office LCCN2016824374" by National Photo Company Collection, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- "Employment service in Oulu in the spring 1931" by Finnish Heritage Agency (Museovirasto), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons