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Booking.com is warning artificial intelligence (AI) is driving an explosion in travel scams.<\/p>\n
The firm’s internet safety boss, Marnie Wilking, said there had been “anywhere from a 500 to a 900% increase” in the past 18 months.<\/p>\n
She said there had been a particularly marked increase in phishing – where people are tricked into handing over their financial details – since generative AI tools like ChatGPT burst onto the market.<\/p>\n
“Of course, we’ve had phishing since the dawn of email, but the uptick started shortly after ChatGPT got launched,” she said. <\/p>\n
“The attackers are definitely using AI to launch attacks that mimic emails far better than anything that they’ve done to date,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Phishing attacks often try to convince people to hand over their card details through by sending them fake – but very convincing looking – internet booking links.<\/p>\n
Scammers often target websites like Booking.com and Airbnb because they allow people to list their own places to stay<\/p>\n
After someone pays up, the scammers either vanish without a trace – leaving the buyer without a place to stay – or even try to scam them out of more money through follow-up messages. <\/p>\n
These sorts of scams have been around for decades, though they often come with telltale signs of fraud, such as spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But – speaking at the Collision technology conference in Toronto – Ms Wilking said AI was making them harder to detect because it could generate realistic images and much more accurate text, in multiple languages.<\/p>\n
She is calling for hotels and travellers to use two-factor authentication – it involves an additional security check, such as inputting a code sent to you phone – calling it “the best way to combat phishing and credential stealing”.<\/p>\n
She also urged people to more vigilant than before when clicking on links.<\/p>\n
But despite criticising how scammers are using AI, she said the technology was also allowing Booking.com to rapidly remove fake hotels that tried to scam people.<\/p>\n
“We’ve set up AI models to detect those and either block them from getting on there to begin or take it down before there’s any booking,” she said.<\/p>\n
Jane Hawkes, a consumer expert specialising in the travel industry, said travel providers should “step up efforts” to make people aware of the scams.<\/p>\n
“They also have a responsibility to advise travellers ways to minimise the risk of being scammed,” she said.<\/p>\n
But she said people should do their research “with due diligence” to avoid falling for them in the first place.<\/p>\n
“Check that contact details are readily available on websites and that there is a telephone number – many scam sites purposely don\u2019t have one,” she said.<\/p>\n
And she also recommended booking package holidays, rather than booking flights and accommodation separately, and to use a credit card to maximise how much you are protected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n