Google has killed blogs, so are content creators dead?

The Traverse content creators awards at WTM this year were interesting.

Pretty much to a woman, each winner came up and lamented the terrible year just gone. If travel is booming what has gone wrong here? Aren’t content creators the future of travel?

The answer is Google and their algorithm updates have wiped traffic from travel blogs and destroyed business models for those who create them. The general mood was that the big G might be struggling in its “Do no evil” promise.

We also heard the sponsored post business was getting a lot harder for those who ply their trade on Instagram or TikTok. There are more creators and only so much money in the “Brand” budgets at travel companies.

On the brand side, marketers shuffled their feet and talked about lack of attribution metrics meant their hands were tied.

None of this is good news for those currently suffering but it was good validation of the real problems Videreo is looking to solve:

1. Help content creators make a full time living from doing what they love

2. Give brands the attribution metrics they need to start bringing more money into this field of marketing

Videreo makes a video creator’s entire video library searchable & shoppable helping them to intercept their followers at the moment of travel intent, moving the creator down the funnel from inspiration to booking. With booking comes attribution.

Its free for creators & no website required. Videreo can launch straight from link-in-bio

It is success based for brands meaning no-one has to take any risks here.

Check out more here 

This content is provided by the newsletter sponsor Videreo.com

Can you optimize for LLM results?

In this comprehensive piece from Jared Alster over at Dune7, he argues that yes - you can and should be getting yourself ready to have your business return in an LLM query.

Alster compares and contrasts the similarities and differences around a range of SEO topics and offers a “what to do differently” section for each of those.

For example when it comes to User Experience (UX) Alster suggests “Ensure content is easy to consume—breaking down large blocks of text, simplifying language where appropriate, and focusing on delivering information in manageable, digestible blocks.”

There are lots of different areas covered.

Pretty vital reading IMO.

A LLM in travel that delivers live pricing!

Chris Moss from NowBoarding posted this week about their new LLM which doesn’t just bring back some lovely written prose on your chosen travel subject but adds in the cold hard facts of prices too!

Moss says it the “first of its kind AI agent fully integrated with live pricing and inventory.”

If you think you know of another one, please leave a comment on the LinkedIn post launching this edition of the newsletter.

World’s first AI voice booking assistant?

Sticking with “World’s first”, John Prince from Hotel Planner this week posted that they “have delivered the industry’s first end to end AI that speaks like a human, gives incredible hotel advice on simple and complex questions, and finally walks you through room selection and booking with a credit card.”

You can give Cassandra a call right now on hotelplanner.ai through your computer. She is very thorough at keeping you up to date on what she is doing throughout the process!

She did offer me a hotel with no availability to start with (in Lake Ohrid, Albania) but she has a assured me that this was an oversight on her behalf and she will check the availability first in future. 😅 

It is simple enough for my grandma to use though! (never made it to payment though…)

It also fun and comes with bonus background call center noise and the sound of keyboard tapping! Give it a go!

Infinite flavours of ice-cream!

That is how John Lyotier of travelai.com described the release of Oasis: A Universe in a Transformer

John explains “We will soon have a world in which all media (websites, games, movies, books) will differ based on the whom is consuming the content.” Essentially a choose your own adventure on LLM steroids - which if you’ve ever spent anytime playing around with them - you know is truly infinite in terms of what it might come up with.

“Imagine a world in which your Netflix series does not have the same ending as the one that I have watched?” It’s a mind-bending type of concept.

Lyotier extends the thinking to business with “…a website that doesn't 'exist' as we know it today ... instead, you get one that is personalized to your unique tastes, wants, hopes, dreams, and desires.”

I think we are inching towards this already with the trip planners.

As long as my ending has me actually being able to check in to real place that exists - we should all be good.

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:

“Computer Use” by Anthropic

Vinay Dhavala shone the light this week into a topic I don’t think we hear enough about - because in travel especially, it is where the huge disruption could come from.

OTA’s exist because supply was fragmented. They rolled it all up and made it searchable and transactable. That is a hard, long and time-consuming process to go through.

Chatting this week to some in the Tours & Activities space this week (who are a decade or more behind hotels) I heard admissions that as of today - things are still mostly regionalised (Viator for North America; GYG for Europe & Klook for Asia - although I’m positive none would admit that publicly).

Vinay asks “What if we have software systems that don’t need a special interface, aka APIs, but can use the same interfaces that humans already use … see, read, hear, select, tap, double tap, type in etc.?”

This is the era of AI agents heading off to search whatever website it thinks is the answer to a specific query or prompt. And not really caring (as much?…. well, we’ll see) if the website itself is a bit crap and hard to work through - especially if the product itself is rated as being great!

“Anthropic has released Beta version of this capability, called ‘Computer use’ which exactly does that.” Vinay tells us.

Even better he has produced a great video that demos the possibilities.

Why is this potentially disruptive? Well, what if the default rule of LLM’s is to book as close to the supplier as you can get because that is both likely to get the best price and deliver the greatest benefit in terms of travel’s place in the world as way of redistributing wealth?

Bye-bye middlemen.

It’s not just Anthropic. Google this week also accidentally leaked similar tech. Everyone is running to the same door.

Of course travel is sitting there right in the front of mind. “Jarvis AI is expected to allow users to automate web browsing tasks from within Google Chrome so they can focus on more important things while the AI agent shops or even books flights for you.”

As they go on to say when talking about a Christmas shopping example “….after all, nothing says 'I love you' more than a gift purchased by AI.”

AI-men!

Once they get it all working beautifully and seamlessly, they can then start working backwards to muddy and put in just enough opaqueness to make it an ad platform.

Hello middlemen!

This is a cracking ad made with AI!

Loved this ad (said no-one ever). But actually, I really did love it.

Your weekly reminder. AI is just a tool. You still need to use your own brilliance to come up with the concept (well AI can help there too) but when you come up with something great… AI can really help you execute something incredible at a fraction of the cost of what it would’ve been 2 years ago.

Well done to the team at Faye.

Slack Group!

Where is Tony?

Most of this week you would have found me under the bed covers with COVID.

Firming up for the future are ITB just to have another Everything AI in Travel meetup.

Then TravelCon in Tucson in March.

As Cassandra from hotelplanner.ai can tell you - also looking at Albania in July.

Adrian is representing Videreo at the Future Travel Summit in Barcelona and the Barcelona Travel Massive. If you are a brand of content creator - see the Videreo post above why should track him down.

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 travelai.com after the story about their money making ways!!

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 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