Tulum was losing its magic so Living Dreams Mexico turned to creators to show it’s as amazing as ever

Tulum is going through some tough times. I first visited in 1996 when it was a backpacker’s dream. Beautiful white sand beaches with awesome Mayan ruins right there.

Whilst those two elements still remain, the cheap digs, cheap eats and chill vibes have all somewhat eroded over time.

I took the Urban Adventures team back there for a corporate retreat in 2019. It was still OK. I wouldn’t say cheap, in fact I’d say there was a layer of gringo tax in everything around Tulum and each taxi ride left me short changed and a little bitter.

I read on LinkedIn a post in December from someone who was there, who said they were literally the only tourist in the street. I’m sure there were probably a handful of others floating around but the golden goose had definitely had its wings clipped, it seemed.

Our new Videreo client, Living Dreams Mexico are not reliant on Tulum exclusively as they operate all over the Riviera Maya but they wanted to do something to demonstrate that this was still a cool place to spend your vacation.

We teamed them up with the crew from Escapism who were holding a creator’s house event in Tulum. Living Dreams took the creator crew out for a day in the jungle and in return each of the crew posted about the experience, getting the not only the word but the entire scene in wonderful video - out to the world.

AI agents help orchestrate the building of these guides they shared with their audience on social media, so creators just need to add in their own unique media to make them pop!

The Living Dreams tours became the main recommendations of these guides and the team has access to a live dashboard to see how many people are viewing the guides and clicking through to the tours themselves to assess their ROI.

Videreo helps travel brands, agencies & destinations find, book, manage and MEASURE content creators. We give you the control you want with the scale you need.

Contact me to learn how we can make this happen for you.

This content is provided by the (interim) newsletter sponsor Videreo.com

A travel SaaS business with 21 AI employees

A terrific post this week from the founder Egor Karpovich at Travel Code, a travel management platform for business travel, who broke down his entire AI stack for those interested in knowing what a company in 2026 looks like.

“Today I have 12 agents, 48 automated cron jobs, a $92K paper trading portfolio managed by one of them, and a GTM pipeline that scrapes 7,200+ competitor reviews to find sales leads.”

Not really sure what the trading portfolio has to do with anything - but the rest is impressive.

The agents at work here are:

• Lobster — Coordinator

• Sales Agent

• SEO Agent

• SMM Agent

• Trader

• PR Agent

• DevBot

• Mailer

• CFO

• Analyst

The sales agent for example “has 15 skills installed — from Apollo and HubSpot CRM connectors to cold email generators, Google Ads, and a Twenty CRM integration.

The numbers: 7,229 competitor reviews scraped across Navan, TravelPerk, Egencia, and 12 other competitors. 73 hot leads (unhappy decision-makers at competitors). 255 warm leads in pipeline. All found and qualified automatically.”

They are aiming to have 50 agents working shortly.

Elsewhere in the Lobster-verse 🦞 Simone Lini is doing price beats on flights

Simone Lini from Navifare who we’ve written about before here in this newsletter has also got his lobster out and is building new things.

“Navifare is now available as a skill on OpenClaw”, Simone posted.

What does this mean?

“You can just pass it a screenshot, and it will try to beat the price you found. Actually a better experience than the web app - maybe we should target agents.”

Simone has bought the moltravel.com domain just in case this becomes the way we shop.

Meanwhile Simon Høiberg has his OpenClaw personal assistant running his life.

“I'm at the airport. My agent has the boarding pass, it checks the details through Google Flights.

It knows which gate, which check-in areas, and it knows Dubai airport in and out.”

Is this how life will be for every traveller soon?

“I just talk to my agent through voice messages. And it messages me back using text-to-voice. I have headphones on, and it's telling me exactly where to go and when - and give me gentle reminders when I need to get ready.”

Apparently going back from here would be a massive downgrade.

Airbnb says traffic from AI search is converting better than Google

Grace Gollasch this week gave us the news that Airbnb had shared around how the LLM traffic was converting.

“Speaking on Airbnb’s Q4 earnings call overnight, CEO Brian Chesky said the rise of AI chatbots is benefiting the brand, revealing that traffic referred from chatbot platforms “converts at a higher rate” than traffic from Google.”

Gollasch reported Chesky saying “We don’t need to live in a world where everyone else has to lose,” he said. “These companies will be very helpful top-of-funnel traffic generators for Airbnb, just like Google.”

Let’s hope that’s how it plays out…….

Agentic: defined

Martin van der Voort is not happy with the state of how people are throwing around terms like agentic.

“Buyers hear “agentic” and assume fewer humans, lower servicing cost and better disruption handling. Conversational wrappers on legacy systems will not deliver that.”

But not everything is agentic. “The term is now used so casually that it risks losing meaning. Every second travel product is suddenly described as “agentic”, “autonomous” or “end-to-end”. That alone should trigger skepticism.”

Martin has an easy test you can apply: “If you must guide the system at every step, it is not an agent.”

He also came up with a new glossary which I’ll now add to the bottom of these newsletters as the one we have hasn’t been updated for nearly 2 years.

Artificial Intelligence = Broad umbrella term
Machine Learning = Learning patterns from data
Large Language Model = Probabilistic language generation
AI Assistant = Reactive, prompt-driven interface
Tool-using AI = Assistant calling external systems
Agentic AI = Goal-driven system that plans, acts and adapts
AI Agent = Software owning decisions within limits
Autonomous Agent = Agent operating over time
Agent-to-Agent = Agents transacting directly

Get Your Guide says they are going AI first. Alex Bainbridge breaks down what that should look like

Alex Bainbridge has taken the Get Your Guide claims to be going AI first and given some colour to what that might look like in Tours and Activities. “This isn’t really about one company. Every OTA faces the same structural shift. GetYourGuide simply happens to be saying it publicly.”

Bainbridge offers 8 statements that define an AI first company (in his opinion):

• Stop defending the information gap. Compete on the risk gap — AI doesn’t need help choosing. It needs help committing.

• Rearchitect the core proposition for AI agents, not human users — If your platform only works when a human scrolls it, you have not rearchitected for the AI layer.

• Lead, shape, and accelerate AI standards — If you’re not helping shape AI standards, you’re volunteering to operate inside someone else’s.

• Distribute and enable accountable AI-operated experiences — Standalone AI layers are content, not experiences; enable accountable AI-enhanced experiences instead.

• Rebuild reztech for the AI era — If OTAs want to move from marketplace to infrastructure, this is where it happens.

• Invest in the AI startup ecosystem — Shape the ecosystem early or the next generation of infrastructure will be built without you.

• Recognise that the real competition is broader than other OTAs — If OTAs don’t redefine their role, a higher platform layer will define it for them.

• Demonstrate intellectual curiosity through real-world experiments — AI-first is not a statement; it’s a continuous learning posture.

There is a ton more detail in the article.

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:

Marketplace Spotlight: Magpie

Christian Watts and Magpie have their own new newsletter out this week. I didn’t sign up for it but he sent it to me anyway 🤣 

The newsletter this week covered these topics - which I think you’ll find relevant:

• AI & the Claude Revolution

• Viator and GetYourGuide's Future in an AI World *popular this week

• OTAs Gain Share of Experiences Bookings

• Speaking of OTAs...

• Google Posts 101: A Virtual Interactive Workshop

• Google Business Profile — Magpie Integration

• Arival Valencia & Brisbane

• The Future of Agentic Commerce for Travel

• Google Things-To-Do Ads

• Final AI Section / 2026 AI Prediction

You can find the newsletter at travelindustry.ai 

If you have a B2B business underpinned by AI and looking for people to notice you, you can sign up to the marketplace for peanuts (top right corner, 5 mins, bring your logo).

I’ve priced for bootstrapped startups but also accepting larger companies too.

Mike Coletta announces 2 new reports from PhocusWright

Mike Coletta let us know this week that there are two new important reports out:

"𝗧𝗿𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲" - This is “the annual report I build toward every year. If you've seen the "Something Big Is Happening" essay going viral right now, think of this as the travel industry's version.”

Of course, you’ve seen the Something Big is Happening” essay - I posted it here last week.

According to Coletta, we are seeing “the collapse of the traditional entry points travelers have used for decades, the shift from chatbots to autonomous agents, the protocols enabling end-to-end agentic commerce, and why the competitive window for early movers is measured in months, not years.”

"𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀, 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗔𝗜," is the other report covering B2B. Coletta says it is one of just a “few in the market to capture how travel executives are actually allocating budget, talent and infrastructure around generative and agentic AI”

Slack Group!

Podcasts and Sponsors

Podcasts now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts:

New podcasts are now showing up on Spotify and Apple Podcasts for your easy listening pleasure!

This week I caught up with one of my favourite people in the AI + travel world - John Lyotier from TravelAI.com 

John was the earliest supporter of this media biz and the podcast probably wouldn’t exist without their generous support. That aside, John runs a business where AI machines are building AI machines that actually make money. Good money. He isn’t selling AI ware to people - he is getting consumers to buy hotel nights. Tons of them.

And he does it quietly but if you ask him for help or to explain knowledge gaps you have yourself - boom - he doesn’t hesitate to give you everything he knows. This is one to listen to: listen here

The special FREE education series remains available on YouTube. for those who need to just get doing something, not nothing….

Partner with Us

Most clicked last week was the link to the Google announcements (since mainly walked back as above!)

That’s it - you’ve made it to the end of this edition. Happy Thanksgiving to those who are celebrating it! If you’re thankful for this newsletter - you can always buy me a coffee.

I’ll be putting the result of the most clicked post in next week’s edition so you can see where others are focusing. 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