A word from our sponsor!

When I was running Urban Adventures we didn’t lack great stories to talk about. What we lacked was website real estate, especially above the fold to tell them all.

With a 3-person marketing team, it was also impossible to give each of our 160 cities equal share of voice in whatever it was we were promoting in our owned media space.

This means you constantly have more stories you are not telling, than those you are. For you this might be products or something else, but at UA it was destinations.

This is the inspiration behind Videreo.

Using the “Stories Bubbles” widget (like at the top of Instagram) you can use just an inch of web space above the fold, from where users can click to open full-screen, vertical videos and scroll their way through to find what interests them.

Or once clicking open the feed they can also navigate by map to their area of interest and start watching videos from there.

When the user finds what inspires them, they click straight from video to the product. Try doing that on social media!

How much for all this? Videreo has a free version coming out soon. Check out more here and grab a demo.

AI images - yes or no? 

A post on LinkedIn from Obvlo’s CEO Callum Mc Pherson caught my eye this week.

Obvlo is a content startup that helps hotel create personalised content for their guests using AI. And that now includes AI imagery.

Callum and his team have recently switched to using a tool called Ideogram to do their image creation and are achieving great photo-realistic results.

Wading through stock sites for the right shot is both time consuming and expensive. But it is also real. The question is, does that matter?

The image that was posted alongside the post from Ideogram was indeed a pretty good rendition of Soho in London. But all the signs had nonsense written on them (in nice store type branded fonts mind you). If just flicking past, you probably wouldn’t notice. But if you don’t notice, then do you even care the image is there in the first place?

You can never visit the place you are seeing. That seems like a problem in travel?

Is the future a place where “luxury’ gives you real photography and below luxury gives you AI versions of pseudo-reality that look classy?

And that leads us to video where advancements are also being made. This post by Gaál László on LinkedIn gives us the full campaign video - made completely by AI. Its really quite good.

I was involved many years ago in the launch of a new brand, Adventure.com and the hero video made for that launch is eerily similar to the output here, but the cost is several 10’s of thousands of dollars different.

The big trick here is in swimming downstream with Gen AI’s current capabilities. AI tools can give you a 3-6 second clip which can be pretty great - so the trick here is to storyboard your video story with this limitation in mind. Turn the bug into a feature.

I think brands will churn out some highly “likeable” brand advertising over the next little bit. It will get some buzz and some clicks and might really fire up your TikTok following - and so sure, not a bad hack.

But when it gets to buying time, customers are going to go looking for authenticity and want to see the real thing and know what it is they are actually buying.

Tools for travel agents turn on!

Quite a bit of news floating around about tools for travel agents this week!

AtlasGuru whose founder Kim Bennett has previously been a guest on the Everything AI in Travel podcast, this week released their AI to Advisor tool and AI Itinerary 2.0.

According to the release from AtlasGuru “The newly upgraded AtlasGuru.com features detailed itineraries across 125 countries, empowering travelers to create personalized trip itineraries using cutting-edge AI technology.”

AtlasGuru blends the human contributions of over 500 in-destination experts with AI for hybrid approach to human + machine. Unlike other platforms, all the recommendations here are real, but the AI is pulling them together in a coherent itinerary and doing it in a flash.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Ofakim Travel is also talking up AI products specifically built for the travel advisor community which they use in their own operation.

Revital Ben Natan, CEO of Ofakim Travel “explained how AI helps agents streamline their work through data management systems and price comparison tools.” at Calcalist's AI conference held in Tel Aviv.

Ben Natan went on to say “Technology is here to assist agents, not replace them. It helps agents become more specialized, focus on unique areas, and offer more sophisticated services.”

I think that is about right.

Global Travel Collection were also talking AI at their Elevate Conference this week.

Angie Licea, president of Global Travel Collection, said “I think some agencies were pulling back, saying ‘we don't want to talk about it because our advisors are going to get scared,’ and we had people outside the industry saying, ‘this is the end of travel advisors,’”

““I took a position very strongly on AI as a tool that enables our advisors. That’s how [GTC and Nicely] ended up connecting, because we both shared that same philosophy: AI is a tool. It’s a tool that can be used by consumers and it can be used by advisors. But it is never replacing advisors."

Finally, Travelport were also out this week talking about “Why AI Should Empower Travel Retailers, Not Replace Them.”

Jen Catto, Chief Marketing Officer at Travelport said “On its own, AI will never be able to replace a travel agent or deliver the value an agency can. But it holds the power to ease the burdens of multi-source content and choice overload.”

Travelport’s own AI content products “deliver the proper range of accurate, highly intuitive search results to our travel agency partners worldwide.”

I’m out talking to travel agents myself next week at Travel Agents Day Australia in Melbourne. Details are below.

AI around the world

Some interesting regional news floating around this week with the Maldives tourism industry meeting to talk about the impact and opportunities with AI in particular in the luxury market.

Ashwin Handa Senior Vice President of Operations at Atmosphere Core highlighted how their business “has embraced AI and machine learning to elevate guest experiences. “We use technology to anticipate guest preferences even before they arrive. Whether it’s personalized dining or custom wellness programs, AI allows us to curate experiences that feel bespoke,”

Solah Mohamed, Chief Operating Officer of Crown & Champa Resorts suggested this was the right approach as “luxury is no longer just about opulence,” he said. “It’s about creating personalized experiences that cater to the unique needs of each guest.”

Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, a similar conversation was underway.

Hospitality Association of Zimbabwe President Brian Nyakutombwa suggested AI can be used to help foster collaboration. “Tourists often seek comprehensive packages that include a variety of activities, which one individual player cannot provide. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) can play a transformative role in fostering future tourism entrepreneurship.”

It was encouraging to see this narrative shining through.

“AI can act as a unifying tool, facilitating data-driven solutions that allow tourism entrepreneurs to customize packages tailored to the preferences and demands of potential visitors.” said Nyakutombwa.

Are we there yet?

Timothy O'Neil-Dunne is another multiple entrant this week.

O'Neil-Dunne posted an op-ed on PhocusWire this week where the conclusions to aspiring startups were:

For startups, please stop trying to solve the biggest problems.

• You are already too late, and

• You don't have enough breadth and depth to make it.

Ouch.

In terms of funding landscape, O'Neil-Dunne said “funding is more selective, tech giants and investors are willing to back established players or those demonstrating profitability.“

Maybe every accelerator on earth should stop telling startups that traction is all that matters?

Perhaps surprisingly O'Neil-Dunne also remains bullish on human travel agents. “Digital agents might handle basic queries, but the value of human oversight remains essential. The risk of travel companies blindly leaning into AI is the potential loss of personalized service, which has always been a cornerstone of the travel experience.”

This wasn’t Timothy’s only output for the week! He also posted on LinkedIn about AI agents in response to a great article on Travel Again Advisory - which breaks down how the Agentic Interface might work in the Apple ecosystem.

His main take: “the desire by so many stakeholders to OWN AND CONTROL their customers with a dog in the manger approach will be the friction that has to be overcome..” & “There is an arms race going on which will be disjointed and full of missteps. BUT not doing changing would be criminal.”

Inevitably some big players will see an advantage in working with Apple and then FOMO will kick in and the dominoes will fall.

Snowflake’s chance…

Snowflake has announced a data cloud product specific to the Travel & Hospitality industry “offering industry-specific solutions to deliver data insights for the travel and hospitality industry.”

“The AI Data Cloud for Travel and Hospitality addresses key industry trends and use cases, including dynamic pricing and sustainability tracking, developer efficiencies, reputation management, and performance advertising to help organisations across the industry both streamline operations and unlock new business value.”

That’s a lot!

Trip Advisor is an example of a Snowflake customer.

“"It unifies our enterprise analytics, marketing, and customer insights, providing the data foundation for our AI initiatives. Moreover, Snowflake has revolutionised how we collaborate with other brands in the ecosystem, allowing secure data sharing that benefits both our business and the broader travel industry.”

The collaboration piece being very interesting here.

If you think someone (or everyone) you know or work with could grow from being more informed on the topic of ai + travel (or could use the training above) then please forward this email to them and they can click the button below:

AI hits loyalty

In probably my least favourite part of the travel industry, “Loyalty” which has nothing to do with a customer being loyal is getting an AI shake-up - but probably not the one it needs.

The article here actually has a heading which says “What's Wrong with Most Loyalty Programs?” At this point I was excited.

Unfortunately, what it suggested might be wrong was all about points and getting relevant offers in front of users to redeem them.

Let’s just call these what they are: “Please re-book here programs.” This is nothing to do with loyalty. Loyalty is when a customer really can’t wait to come back because what the experienced was so damn awesome.

There is a massive opportunity right now in this type of loyalty. If your brand touches the customer at any point before they head off on their first flight, you have the opportunity to leverage AI to be their (branded) helper through the course of their trip.

Just-in-time recommendations that are both awesome and personalised for this customer are the gold here. Your brand can have the multiple times daily interactions with the traveller that you’ve always dreamed of and thought was impossible in travel.

It is crazy how little seems to be happening in creating a truly loyal customer.

Slack Group!

Where is Tony?

There are a few places upcoming where you can find me if you like.

I’m also moderating an AI panel at the Travel Agents Days Australia being held in Melbourne on 2nd October 2024. You can find out more details on that one here.

I’m looking at coming over to both TIS in Seville (late October) and WTM in London (early Nov). If anyone is interested in catching up at either of those places, please send me a message. This is now looking more likely than not! Let’s catch up.

This spot used to be about how to work with me but between existing consulting work and joining Videreo as co-founder, there isn’t really a lot of time for new consulting work I’m afraid.

More than happy to catch up at a conference somewhere and give my two-cents as always. Also happy to field speaking spots at conferences.

At Videreo, we are closing access to our proof-of-concept group on Friday (that’s tomorrow for most of you) - now is the time to join please get in touch. 

We currently have an OTA, a Chamber of Commerce, an Influencer building their owned media space, a small tour operator, a larger tour operator, a media company, a conference organiser and lots more.

It comes with 6 months of free product and very attentive service.

We’ll be opening a public beta with a free plan available to small operators very soon also and are speaking with production houses about a way to put their b-roll back to work for them. If you have a ton of travel b-roll, reach out and you could b-rolling in it too! 😅 

The Everything AI in Travel marketplace is now launched - please just jump on the site to grab your listing if you have an AI tool or service that you want the industry to know about.

Most clicked last week was the link to the Travel Agents Day Australia link! Great! See you all there!!!

That’s it - you’ve made it to the end of this edition. I’ll be putting the result of the most clicked post in next week’s edition so you can see where others are focussing. If I’ve missed something, you’ve got a tip or any feedback at all - you can simply reply to this email and it will come straight to me. I’m doing this for You so please don’t be shy to tell me what you think