Are influencers the new power brokers in travel?

In a spectacular example of old men shouting at clouds, the news that Skift believes influencers could be the new powerbrokers in travel as one its 2025 travel trends, brought out a host of folks who think that is utter rubbish! (read the comments!!)

In his piece Sean O’Neil made the following observations:

“The game-changer is that social media is about to marry e-commerce as platforms essentially add “buy” buttons to content.” This is exactly what Videreo does. Videreo captures buyer intent through the motion of searching dropping creators down from inspiration into planning & booking.

““When marketers can easily point to how partnerships with influencers lead in a straight line to sales, they’ll be more likely to pull that lever.” This is exactly what Videreo delivers to brands. Influencer attribution has arrived for brands to whom that is important!

“For traditional travel agencies and marketing firms, the message is clear: adapt or risk becoming as outdated as a fax machine in a WeWork. Influencers who know how to make commerce feel like conversation and advertising feel like advice may become one of the most powerful distribution channels in travel.” Sean’s words but definitely the Videreo sentiment. The industry really needs to start thinking of content creators as the new travel advisors. Or miss out.

Check out more here to join brands already being sold his way like Contiki, G Adventures & Globus.

This content is provided by the newsletter sponsor Videreo.com

Is Google back in the game?

Google fronted up this week to declare the news of their demise may have been a little premature.

At least prominent AI commentator Conor Grennan certainly thinks they might be back with a swathe of new announcements:

1. Gemini 2.0 Flash: Speed Demon > Twice as fast as their previous models > Beats Gemini 1.5 Pro on every major benchmark > Native multilingual audio that actually sounds human > Real-time everything: text, images, audio > Direct integration with Google Search (this is HUGE)

   2. Project Mariner: The Web Browser That Thinks > AI that actually browses the web like a human > Scores 83.5% on real-world web tasks (!!!) > Understands forms, code, images - the whole deal > Types, scrolls, clicks - all while you watch > Built right into Chrome (of course)

   3. Project Astra: The Assistant That Remembers > 10-minute memory for actual conversations > Speaks multiple languages like a native > Integrated with Maps, Search, and Lens > Response times that'll make ChatGPT blush > Personalization that actually works

   4. The Secret Weapons > Jules: An AI coding agent that lives in GitHub > Gemini for Games: Real-time gaming companion > Web-scale integration across Google's ecosystem

Meanwhile from another part of the Googleshpere, Mike Colletta posted this video into the Slack group associated with this newsletter of how all the different bits & bobs of Google’s AI can help you on a visit to London.

Amazon enters the room.

Grennan was on fire this week as he also broke the news about Amazon starting to move through the gears on their own AI ambitions.

“Amazon woke up this week and chose violence. They just announced their own foundation models, 75% cheaper. Plus AI Chips. Plus super computer. They’re coming for EVERYONE.”

Competition is good of course for all the rest of us especially when Amazon breaks out “Six new Nova models that match or exceed competitors - 75% lower costs than current market leaders - Already powering 1,000 Amazon applications.”

Interesting for us in travel in particular could be “2025 roadmap includes groundbreaking speech-to-speech and "any-to-any" models - Supporting 200+ languages while others stay English-focused.”

Most reports around live translation from other solutions are it’s all still pretty rubbish - so this could be very interesting for Amazon which has famously struggled with travel to get themselves a beachhead.

Are we ready for AI video yet?

With OpenAI releasing a new version of Sora (thanks Christian Watts for the video of NFL referees on skateboards you sent across), its time for us all to stop whatever else we were being distracted by and get back to thinking about imaginary videos.

Mo Sherifdeen from Oregon Tourism took the opportunity to dig into Coke’s new Christmas ad that was completely made by AI. He found a great article in the WSJ where Coke’s VP of Generative AI talked about why Coke would go down this path.

The answer is personalization. “imagine a single ad reimagined for 12 U.S. cities, each featuring personalized visuals.”

And time (and money). “Chris Wrubel, from the agency that helped create the ad, described how AI is also reshaping timelines: “The intensity of the creative process that used to happen over weeks and months can now happen every two hours.”

Mo gave us these takeaways to consider:

1️⃣ Campaigns will become increasingly MORE complex to produce and execute.

2️⃣ We’ll need to be savvy about how we use AI as a co-creator in thoughtful innovation and personalization.

3️⃣ While there are definite cost savings on the front end, are overall costs actually down or are we shifting them to other functions?

I’ll add my routinely expressed buyer beware in travel. I don’t think your audience will thank (or trust) you for showing imagined versions of what is real in your destination.

That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t use these tools to create - but think and storyboard very carefully what it is you are trying to communicate. Realism of what ultimately isn’t real, isn’t the answer. Cartoons for family audiences? That could work!

If you can’t get enough of these, here is Vodaphone’s effort. Get down into the comments where as usual Tom Goodwin doesn’t hold back. (Spoiler: it’s not the AI he has a problem with).

Is it bubble? It’s a bubble right?

Paul Bassat from VC firm Square Peg dropped a few thoughts this week that our builders out there are probably interested in. Even if they ultimately prove false, they show the mindset of at least some in the VC world towards AI companies right now.

Among Bassat’s summations are:

“The TAM of AI native businesses is way larger than the TAM for the previous generation of SaaS businesses.”

“Every current SaaS market is going to become an AI market.”

If that doesn’t have you asking ChatGPT to list all the SaaS markets, nothing will!

AI for destinations - do’s and don’ts

Mirko Lalli this week dropped the definitive guide to what he feels destinations everywhere should be doing (15) and a few they definitely shouldn’t be doing (5).

It is pretty high level but also very accessible for everyone to at least consider.

The 5 don’ts are probably most instructive:

1. Explaining Local Culture

2. Managing Real Emergencies

3. Building Community Relationships

4. Creating Authentic Local Experiences

5. Making Ethical Decisions

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:

New in the Marketplace: Stay22

A big welcome to the latest member of the Everything AI in Travel marketplace, Stay22.

If you aren’t aware of who Stay22 are they deliver personalized accommodation recommendations by analyzing every user's behavior and preferences to suggest options from major OTA partners that users are most likely to book.

The AI twist, Nova AI through which they identify high travel intent users who haven’t booked and proactively recommends tailored options to before they exit—boosting conversions, creating unique user journeys, and maximizing revenue for platforms.

I remember Rod Cuthbert telling me once that in the 2000’s travel tech was basically, gather a massive audience and then sell them a hotel. It still works today.

If you’ve got an audience (doesn’t have to be massive) and aren’t selling them a hotel, then check out Stay22 for both the simplest and cleverest way to put the right options in front of your customers.

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.

The coolest job

This job opportunity Ana Karina Araque was offering on LinkedIn this week was one of the coolest opportunities I’ve seen.

If my daughter was a few years older I would tell her to drop what you are doing and go check this out.

Slack Group!

XMAS Break, Podcasts and Sponsors

Break:

We’ve got one more edition to go in 2024. We’ll be back in mid January. (Does AI take a Holidays break?)

Podcasts now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts:

We’ve got a couple of new and fresh podcasts to go to see out the year but maybe even more exciting than that is that by XMAS all the Season 1 episodes (all 26 of them) will be up on Spotify for your easy holiday listening pleasure! So if you missed Andy Moss or Anna Jaffe or Jeff Kischuk - well now you can catch up on these digitally remastered REWIND editions. Don’t miss the new ones either - there is cracker coming with Travis Pittman from TourRadar.

Sponsorship Opportunity:

Want to be known as the leading business in AI + Travel?

There is a unique opportunity right now for YOUR BUSINESS to come and take pole position in the AI + Travel world. We are currently fielding expressions of interest from suitable companies to take an owned media strategy like no other for 2025.

Available is blanket naming rights and coverage across both the Everything AI in Travel newsletter & podcast, with all the research, writing, scheduling, recording and publishing to an established and growing audience of decision makers in travel done in turnkey fashion. I’ll dig out each week what moves your company is making and make sure everyone knows about it.

This is your Ben & Jerry’s moment for about half the cost of a marketing coordinator. Shoot me a message if interested.

Most clicked last week was the link to Kevin Indig’s Growth Memo!

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