Black Tomato Feelings Engine: AI trip-planning goes luxury — and the new competitive edge for premium agencies

Luxury travel has never been short on options. What’s changed is the starting point. In February 2025, UK-founded luxury travel company Black Tomato launched a digital tool called the Feelings Engine, designed to recommend trips based on the emotion a traveller wants to experience—rather than beginning with a destination list.

Black Tomato positioned the tool as part of its “Pursuit of Feeling” platform, introduced as the company marked its 20th anniversary.

Black Tomato Feelings Engine: what it is (in the company’s own framing)

Black Tomato describes the Feelings Engine as combining human insight with AI-augmented technology: travellers share “how you want to feel,” and the tool returns relevant trip ideas from Black Tomato’s portfolio.

Trade coverage said the platform filters holidays by emotion and is structured around five themes: Revitalised, Freedom, Distraction, Challenged, Contentment.

Another report described the release package as including 100 curated experiences, plus emotion-led itineraries built around those pillars.

Why this matters in luxury travel (business angle, not hype)

Bloomberg framed the move as elite travel advisors using AI to help clients “book trips based on the vibes” they want—relaxed, reinvigorated, inspired, excited, and so on—while Black Tomato’s co-founder described it as a “return to the company’s roots,” recalling that its early website also prompted travellers to choose based on emotional desires.

Forbes similarly presented it as a new front-end to the booking conversation: type the feeling, then the tool proposes trips aligned to that outcome.

The competitive edge for premium agencies

What the Black Tomato Feelings Engine demonstrates—very concretely—is a shift in what agencies are packaging and selling:

1) A new way to capture demand before “where” is decided

In Business Insider coverage, co-founder Tom Marchant describes clients who are “agnostic” on destination but clear on how they want to feel—language that fits the Feelings Engine approach.

2) Productising taste and expertise into a searchable system

Black Tomato’s model doesn’t claim to replace human planners; it’s framed as AI-augmented and anchored in a curated set of experiences. That’s the key business point: the “secret sauce” becomes an organised portfolio that a tool can surface quickly.

3) Moving luxury language from “features” to “outcomes”

The tool is explicitly built around emotional outcomes (freedom, contentment, challenged), not just hotel stars or flight classes. That’s a positioning shift premium agencies can learn from because it’s easier to differentiate on outcomes than on widely-available inventory.

What premium UK agencies can learn next (practical, non-salesy)

Based on what Black Tomato publicly launched, here are actionable takeaways other luxury agencies can adopt without copying the brand:

• Build an “emotion taxonomy” for your own product. Even 5–8 clear feelings can work (Black Tomato uses five headline themes in trade coverage).

• Create a curated inventory layer. The Feelings Engine is described as drawing from a curated set of experiences; curation is what makes recommendations credible.

• Keep the human handover obvious. Black Tomato frames this as human insight + AI augmentation—helpful for premium service expectations.

• Use emotion-led planning as a filter, not the full plan. The tool surfaces options; the agency still closes the brief, handles logistics, and de-risks the trip—where premium margins typically live.