Thomas Cook joins early AI-powered holiday search adopters

Thomas Cook has joined a handful of early travel adopters by introducing AI-powered holiday search.

The OTA has developed the option using OpenAI’s third-party Model Context Protocol (MCP) tooling accessible through ChatGPT.

The new app enables ChatGPT to search Thomas Cook’s live package holiday inventory - including flight and hotel combinations - on behalf of users.

This transforms the AI assistant into a conversational travel search tool rather than a traditional text-based results engine, according to the company.

Instead of browsing static listings or clicking through external links, customers can search for holidays using natural language prompts by using the Thoams Cook app housed inside ChatGPT.

Results are then returned directly within ChatGPT as rich, interactive widget-style cards.

The widgets display key booking information, including hotel images, star rating, board basis and live pricing.

Each widget also includes a direct link to a booking checkout page, allowing customers to move from AI conversation to purchase without restarting their search journey via the OTA’s website.

Tomasz Lis, AI advocate at Thomas Cook parent eSky Group, said: “Artificial intelligence is already part of everyday life for many of us, so it’s important we embrace this and find ways to genuinely add value to the customer experience.

“We’ve now enabled ChatGPT to actively search our holiday inventory and present results in a highly visual, intuitive way - making it faster and easier for customers to find and book the right holiday for them.”