The industry pours its attention into search and booking. Steve Singh thinks the money is in what happens after. Spotnana's AI now handles cancellations and refunds, and he believes servicing costs can fall by half. He makes the case at Skift Global Forum.
LinkedIn X Facebook Email Does the claimed 50% servicing-cost reduction hold outside a managed-travel platform purpose-built for it? Will freed-up agents genuinely move into higher-value roles, or will automation quietly shrink headcount? Who audits the 95% curation standard, and what happens to travelers who fall into the missing 5%? Select a question above or ask something else
Ask most travel companies where the value is and they’ll point to discovery and the sale. Steve Singh points past it, to servicing, the unglamorous work that starts once the trip is booked. The Spotnana executive chairman and CEO, who joins Skift Global Forum on September 22–24, 2026, argues that AI is quietly rebuilding the economics of that after-purchase work. Ahead of his session in New York City, Singh lays out why he thinks servicing, not search, is where trust and margin are won.
Skift: What is one area that the travel industry doesn’t discuss or pay attention to enough?
Singh: Servicing. We talk endlessly about search, distribution, and booking. What really matters is what happens after the trip is purchased.
Spotnana is seeing tremendous savings in labor costs across our customers and partners due to the combination of AI and investments in automating servicing workflows across a wide range of content sources. I believe we can reduce servicing costs by 50% or more while making traveler experiences dramatically better through servicing that is much more personalized and proactive.
Steve Singh’s case: the work after booking is moving from people to AI, and the cost is falling with it
Most of the servicing queue is manual and repetitive
Humans move to the interactions where a personal touch matters
Skift: What’s a behavior shift you’re seeing in your own data right now that would surprise people outside your company?
Singh: It’s surprising how much of what landed in a travel agent’s queue a few years ago doesn’t need a human agent anymore. Spotnana now has AI agents handling cancelled segments, unticketed flights, and refunds, for example, and we can see how the need for humans to handle routine tasks is decreasing. Human agents can now focus more of their time on higher value services, where a human touch makes all the difference.
Skift: How are you thinking about how the traveler/customer relationship has evolved, and what companies need to do to maintain it?
Singh: As technology evolves, travelers have higher expectations that they should be able to ask anyone for assistance throughout their journey. This is a key reason we have worked with leading travel providers to build direct connections that synchronize booking changes across systems, so a change made anywhere is reflected everywhere.
Anyone can sell a ticket. The hard part is delivering service, and service is where trust is earned or lost. The traveler grades all of us on every interaction. The companies that build the best relationships with customers will be the ones that make all aspects of a traveler’s journey as seamless as possible.
Skift: The customer journey keeps getting longer and more fragmented. How has your thinking changed about traveler choice and how your comp…