India Launches AI-First Digital Stack to Connect Fragmented Tourism Ecosystem

India has launched an AI-first digital infrastructure for tourism, with the Ministry of Tourism and Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) launching the National Digital Tourism Stack (NDTS) on World Tourism Day to connect destinations, tourism businesses, and travellers across multiple digital platforms.

The stack is designed to address fragmentation across India’s tourism ecosystem by bringing together homestays, attractions, guides, experiences, and transport services through common digital infrastructure. It will support AI-led travel discovery and planning, while allowing tourism providers to list their offerings and become discoverable across participating platforms. 

The initiative is designed around 23,000+ tourism experiences and homestays, while 1,000+ tourism experiences, including 170 ASI monuments and 29 museums, are already transacting on the ONDC network.

“As travel discovery increasingly moves towards AI-led interfaces and personal digital agents, that infrastructure also needs to remain trusted and adaptable to new forms of traveller experience,” Karthick Prabhu, Vice President, Travel, ONDC, said in a statement.

The stack is being designed to support AI-led interfaces and personal digital agents for travel discovery and planning. The Ministry of Tourism has also outlined a “One ticket, One pass” vision to bring different parts of a traveller’s journey together through common digital infrastructure.

Trust is another core layer of the initiative, with the infrastructure envisaged to support provider credentials, reliable tourism information, service standards, ratings and reviews, and grievance mechanisms, according to the Ministry.

The Ministry will work with states and union territories to curate and validate tourism experiences as the programme expands. The initiative also aims to widen digital market access for smaller tourism businesses and lesser-known destinations.