[Kerwin At AI Travel Pulse] I Feel Like I've Neglected You...

Germany Tourist Board Uses AI In Their Marketing

The travel content creator sphere was lit a few weeks ago when the Germany Tourist Board introduced Emma.

Emma is a virtual travel influencer with a British accent who will tell you more about Germany. The post garnered 1,931 comments; their typical posts gets about 30 or so comments. But most comments were from Influencers, not customers. So only time will tell what customer think.

But let’s face it, this is going to happen and happen a lot. In my mind, as a travel content creator, we should be thinking, as I am, about how to use AI to our advantage.

What say you?

So of course, I used AI (Perplexity.ai; it was too much data for chatgpt :-)) to do the analysis; here’s what it said in summary:

Based on the comments in the provided text, it appears that a significant number of the replies were from content creators, travel influencers, and others in the travel industry.

Public Reaction

The overwhelming majority of comments express strong disapproval and disappointment with the AI influencer concept. Key concerns include:

• Lack of Authenticity: Many commenters emphasize the importance of real human experiences and emotions in travel content.

• Misalignment with Travel Values: Critics argue that AI-generated content contradicts the essence of travel, which is about genuine experiences and human connections.

• Perceived Threat to Human Influencers: Some view this as potentially replacing or devaluing the work of real travel influencers and content creators.

Industry Implications

This situation highlights several important issues in the travel and marketing industries:

• AI in Tourism Marketing: The controversy demonstrates the challenges of integrating AI into traditional marketing strategies, especially in experience-based industries.

• Authenticity vs. Innovation: There's a clear tension between embracing new technologies and maintaining authentic, human-centric approaches to travel promotion.

• Influencer Marketing Evolution: This incident may prompt discussions about the future of influencer marketing and the role of AI in content creation.

There’s always resistance to technological changes; so we will see where this goes.

What say you?

SearchGPT Is Now Available

Remember I told you that ChatGPT, created a cousin, SearchGPT which is designed to enhance your search experience by providing more detailed, context-aware results directly from a chat interface.

Well, its ready and you can access it at https://chatgpt.com/search.

Try it out and let me know what you think. Do a search on it and then also on the other search engines and compare the results.

AI In the News

If you’re still on the fence about AI, this article may help you. Even if you, yourself, don’t like it travelers are using it.

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/should-you-use-ai-to-plan-your-next-trip/

Extract

A survey by Adobe finds more than half of Americans (53%) have turned to AI for help with travel. The top applications in travel include comparison shopping (93%), discovering the working hours for hotel services and restaurants (90%), and finding nearby parking, restaurants and pharmacies (90%). 

The poll doesn’t say how well AI performed, including errors, hallucinations or simply misunderstanding the prompt.

TripAdvisor has an AI Trip Builder

This application asks you a few questions and voila after you sign into TripAdvisor, you get your information.

You too, should be thinking about how you can use AI to acquire customers in a similar manner.

I asked it for a 4-day itinerary in Kingston, Jamaica and you know what, it’s correct!

Go to: https://www.tripadvisor.com/AITripBuilder

I’d Like to Hear From You!

What are your thoughts on using AI tools like SearchGPT and TripAdvisor AI Builder in your travel planning process? Have you tried it yet? Hit reply and let me know your experiences or any other AI topics you'd like me to cover in future newsletters!

Thank you for being a part of AI Travel Pulse. Let’s continue to explore how AI is shaping the future of travel together.

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