Services · AI Strategy & Discovery Sprint
An AI strategy built from how your trips actually run
In three to four weeks we shadow your operation, audit your data and score every AI idea on the table. You leave with a 12-month roadmap and a pilot spec your team can start on Monday.
The problem isn’t a shortage of AI ideas
Most travel businesses we meet already have a list. A chatbot for the website. Auto-written proposals. Dynamic pricing. Something to do with reviews. It’s usually sorted by whoever spoke last.
Meanwhile the hours go somewhere else. An advisor spends forty minutes rebuilding a proposal because a lodge renamed its room types. A reservations lead chases six supplier confirmations by email, and one of them arrives as a scanned fax. A guide re-plans a day by phone from a trailhead with one bar of signal. None of that is on the AI list, because nobody has measured it. We wrote about this pattern in where the hours go in booking operations.
Travelers aren’t waiting for the industry to sort its list. In an August 2026 study by Mindtrip with Sabre, Sojern and MMGY Travel Intelligence, 54% of U.S. travelers said they had already used AI to plan travel, while only 26% of destination organizations had a documented AI strategy. That gap is real. Trying to close it with the wrong pilot is how budgets and patience run out.
What the sprint is for
The Discovery Sprint replaces the list with a map. It shows where AI removes real work or wins real bookings in your operation, what your data can support today, what could go wrong, and what to build first. It’s useful on its own: the roadmap is yours whether or not you build with us.
The method is the same for a tour operator or DMC, a lodge or a destination organization; for a DMO, the map leans toward visitor-facing planning and partner data, and our twelve questions for DMOs are a useful primer.
Timeline
Four weeks, week by week
Most sprints run four weeks; a single-product operator with one reservation system can finish in three.
- Week 1
Field week
We sit with advisors, reservations and guides: on calls, in the shared inbox, sometimes on the shuttle. We time the real workflows, list every system and export, and keep field notes on where hours and bookings leak away.
- Week 2
Data audit and opportunity scoring
We profile your reservation, CRM, supplier and content data for completeness, duplication and freshness. Then every AI idea, yours and ours, is scored on value, feasibility, data readiness and risk.
- Week 3
Risks, architecture and the pilot spec
We draft the risk register, sketch a target architecture around the systems you already run, and write a buildable spec for the highest-scoring pilot, including how it will be measured.
- Week 4
Readout and roadmap
A working session with your leadership, not a slide show. We walk through the opportunity map, defend the ranking, adjust it with you and lock the 12-month roadmap.
Checklist
What you leave with
Seven deliverables, each written for the people who will use it.
Side by side
Before and after the sprint
What changes in the month after
A sprint won't move your booking numbers on its own. It improves your next decision. Within a few weeks of the readout, clients typically have:
- A pilot that can start right away: scoped, measured and approved, usually as an 8–12 week engagement
- A shared vocabulary, so leadership, operations and IT agree on what AI means for the business this year
- A data-cleanup list your team can start without us, ordered by the use case each fix unblocks
- A clear "not now" list, which saves about as much money as the roadmap spends
We came in wanting a website chatbot. The field week showed our advisors were losing most afternoons to supplier confirmations. The pilot we ran wasn't glamorous, and it gave the team their afternoons back.
Where sprints usually lead
The roadmap is vendor-neutral. These are the platform modules and services it points to most often.
- PlatformBooking FlowSupplier requests, confirmation parsing and reconciliation. Often the first pilot, because the hours are easy to measure.
- PlatformItinerary StudioPersonalized proposals drafted from traveler intent, then edited and approved by your advisors.
- PlatformSignalsDemand and cancellation forecasts, for teams whose data audit shows enough clean history.
- ServiceTravel Data Engineering & IntegrationFor when the audit finds the same supplier in four systems under four names.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Who should be involved from our side?
A sponsor with decision rights, plus the people who do the work: usually one or two advisors, a reservations or operations lead, and whoever manages your systems. Expect about four hours a week from each, most of it in Week 1.
Do we have to use Nova's platform afterwards?
No. The roadmap names the capability you need, not a vendor. If one of our modules fits, we'll say so and explain why. If another tool or an internal build fits better, the roadmap says that too.
We're a small operator. Is a sprint overkill?
Smaller businesses often get the most from it, because one wrong pilot is a bigger share of their budget. For a single-product operator the sprint compresses to three weeks. For a quick read first, try the AI readiness assessment.
What data do you need access to?
Read-only exports or views of your reservation, CRM, supplier and content data, ideally covering twelve months or more. We work under a data agreement, keep access least-privilege, and delete working copies at the end of the sprint unless you ask us to keep them for the pilot.
How is a sprint priced?
Like every Nova engagement, it's scoped and quoted after a discovery call. The main variables are the number of business lines, systems and markets involved. Our engagement models page shows how sprints, pilots and subscriptions fit together.
Related
Keep exploring
- CompanyEngagement modelsHow we engage: Discovery Sprint, Pilot, Platform subscription, Build partnership and Managed AI operations, each scoped and quoted after a discovery call.
- ResourcesAI readiness assessmentTen questions on your data, workflows and governance. Get a score out of 30, a readiness band and the next step we'd take for a travel business like yours.
- CompanyOur approachHow Nova Adventure implements travel AI: operational truth first, then routing, prediction and automation, with people approving every decision that matters.
- Field Notes · Operations & AutomationWhere the Hours Go: An Anatomy of Booking OperationsA two-week time study of a booking desk: where 360 hours went, why touches per confirmed service matter, and how to sort tasks into automate, assist or keep.
- Field Notes · Agentic TravelTwelve Questions DMOs Should Ask Before Buying an AI Trip PlannerA buyer's checklist for destination organizations: twelve questions on grounding, data ownership, agent distribution and measurement, with red flags to watch.
Start with four weeks of evidence
Tell us what's on your AI list and where the hours seem to go. We'll reply within one business day to set up a discovery call.