With the rapid development of the digital economy, the cultural and tourism industry is advancing toward digital transformation. As the latest research achievement in the field of artificial intelligence, generative AI relies on its core advantages, including proprietary content generation, intelligent interaction, and personalized adaptation, to provide a new direction for digital education of tourism management majors. As an important carrier for cultivating interdisciplinary digital talents for the cultural and tourism industry, the traditional operation mode of tourism management majors can hardly adapt to the latest industrial development trends. Therefore, generative AI needs to be introduced into teaching to construct a new teaching system so as to guarantee the final talent cultivation effect. Starting from the current situation of digital and intelligent education in tourism management empowered by generative AI, this paper conducts an in-depth analysis of the significance of such empowerment, and systematically discusses the corresponding realization paths, aiming to cultivate more high-quality talents for the digital development of the cultural and tourism industry.