Welcome to this introduction to our new educational series on AI in Travel.
Quite frankly we are concerned. A recent EY study found only 29% of employees in billion dollar companies believe they have been given sufficient education in how to work with AI and AI agents.
We suspect that number is about 10% in travel and even less in SMB's.
Those in that 29% are set to jump to the head of the promotion list and be sought after by other companies over the next couple of years. This is one of those rare opportunities for people to make a huge leap in their career trajectory - simply by being curious and digging in to get themselves ahead of the pack.
We are removing cost from the decision tree with this series which we are offering totally for free to anyone who wants to finally get themselves or their company moving on the AI train.
The cost of not getting educated is the true cost here.
Make sure to subscribe to the podcast and newsletter to get each edition notified to you.
You can find the tools we will be working with alongside educator and PHD, Mr Santiago Rodriguez who gets paid by companies to provide this education to the staff within here: www.santiagor.com/free-ai-tools
Claire Robinson is building a data powerhouse to pair with generative AI from her base in regional France.
What started as a need for more granular information in her own travels has grown into a sophisticated system to collect all manner of data that nowhere else.
Hear how Claire, who comes from a scientific background, is using that data to provide grounded AI outputs that can beat the competition.
Mennan Yelkenci isn’t waiting for someone else to solve the big consumer opportunity in travel + AI. He is building the solution.
This is an episode about taking big swings for wins.
I always love catching up with Alex Bainbridge. Not only is he the number one member of the Everything AI in Slack community but the way he looks at and conceives (rather than perceives - this man is a doer, not a watcher) the world is just so different to most of us.
I therefore jumped at the chance to co-host a session at the upcoming Arival event in Washington DC with Alex where anyone who has their own ideas, thoughts or challenges with AI can drop by and we can chat those through as a group.
I caught up with Alex in advance here on the pod to help set the scene and to give a glimpse to those who can’t make it. (Discounted ticket below if you can).
We also have special offer for those looking to attend the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences in early October, happening in Washington DC. You'll hear about it early in this episode.
Use Promo Code: FOATOCRDC to get a special discount just for our listeners.
I'll be attending so join me this 29–30 September in Washington, DC for the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences — a hands-on, intensive learning forum built for destination experiences leaders serious about applying AI in meaningful, measurable ways.
Special Offer for AI Forum at Arival 2025
The McKinsey report into the impact of AI agents in travel runs at 47 pages.
Only the truly dedicated are reading that one.
For the rest of us - here is a podcast made by AI about AI using NotebookLM to get the jist of what is in the report.
I saw a post by Amir Mohajer of HostAI on LinkedIn that stopped me in my tracks.
Amir posted about how the chase of shiny new objects in the AI landscape nearly killed his entire business.
Whilst the business survived, there were casualties, including Amir's two co-founders. This story is a warning and a celebration all rolled up into one.
Richard Savoie from Adiona is a patent-holding executive and engineer that is currently reinventing urban mobility, logistics, and transport planning.
His company Adiona is an award-winning AI-powered delivery route planning and optimization platform for large fleets, currently powering millions of deliveries globally for the world's best brands like Coca-Cola, Amazon, Australia Post, Marley Spoon, and more. It's up to 87% faster, 90% more accurate, and results in up to 50% lower cost than competing delivery optimization platforms.
We chat to Richard around why AI and logistics are such a good match for one another and how that funnels down to wins for the travel industry (if they are paying attention).
This week I chatted with Tata Crocombe. Tata is a hotelier in the remote Cook Islands but he is not letting his remote location hold back his advancement with AI.
In one of the most remarkable conversations I've had since starting this podcast journey, Tata takes us through how going all in on AI has completely transformed not only hotel operations, but also the hotels fortunes.
Whilst many still grapple with where to start, Tata thinks differently and starts everything with AI to see what happens.
This is one you can't afford to miss.
AI is disrupting search as we've known it.
Recently Skift in conjunction with Dune& & SEO Clarity did a deep dive into what was happening here and what it means for every business in travel.
We sit down with two of the co-researchers here, Seth Borko and Jared Alster to dig deeper into what is happening here and what businesses need to be considering as a result.
We also have special offer for those looking to attend the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences in early October, happening in Washington DC. You'll hear about it early in this episode.
Use Promo Code: FOATOCRDC to get a special discount just for our listeners.
I'll be attending so join me this 29–30 September in Washington, DC for the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences — a hands-on, intensive learning forum built for destination experiences leaders serious about applying AI in meaningful, measurable ways.
Gabby Gonzalez-Bux is one of the OG female founders of the AI + Travel space.
Tango is personalised booking platform for the mass affluent traveller.
Gabby had leant on her experience from building digital experiences in cruise industry (where people sail on ships, not boats!!) to give her the grounding around what great curation looks like.
We dive deep on what personalisation actually is and how AI can play its role here - as it has in the build of Tango.
We also have special offer for those looking to attend the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences in early October, happening in Washington DC. You'll hear about it early in this episode.
Use Promo Code: FOATOCRDC to get a special discount just for our listeners.
I'll be attending so join me this 29–30 September in Washington, DC for the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences — a hands-on, intensive learning forum built for destination experiences leaders serious about applying AI in meaningful, measurable ways.
Square pegs and round holes is how we've cobbled together the travel industry over 3 or so decades online.
Actually chatting to Stu Waldron of the Open Travel Alliance, it goes right back to the 70's.
Stu breaks down all things open source in travel for us. We talk about why many things are not a competitive advantage and therefore there is no reason to try and build your own new wheel and even how those with good intentions and totally open to the open source world, can still make errors by not seeing the totality of the industry of which they are apart.
One of the most fascinating conversations on a subject I've always wanted to know more about. Hope you like it too!
We also have special offer for those looking to attend the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences in early October, happening in Washington DC. You'll hear about it early in this episode.
Use Promo Code: FOATOCRDC to get a special discount just for our listeners.
I'll be attending so join me this 29–30 September in Washington, DC for the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences — a hands-on, intensive learning forum built for destination experiences leaders serious about applying AI in meaningful, measurable ways.
Jason Kismet is a man working his way from the inside of the hotel industry to the outside of travel technology .
Jason is solving problem he and his teams feel personally and intimately everyday.
His business, Kismet is at the cutting edge of helping his fellow hoteliers, especially those special independents, at getting discovered in the new mode of search - AI agents.
In this episode we talk both about the technical side of how that discovery can take place but also what you need to expose about your business to ensure it is a match for the query that started the search in the first place.
This is not just a hotel problem. This is an everyone in travel problem.
Gam Dias is at the leading edge of Agentic Commerce—where digital wallets, personal data, and AI agents converge.
He is the author of the book Agents Unleashed and has used travel as a core case study in much of his research and examples.
We sat down with Gam to break it all down for us as to why AI agents are such a transformation shift in commerce and what it means for travel specifically. Not one you want to miss!
We also have special offer for those looking to attend the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences in early October, happening in Washington DC. You'll hear about it early in this episode.
Use Promo Code: FOATOCRDC to get a special discount just for our listeners.
I'll be attending so join me this 29–30 September in Washington, DC for the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences — a hands-on, intensive learning forum built for destination experiences leaders serious about applying AI in meaningful, measurable ways.
Michael Goldrich knows the hotel marketing business inside out. From digital marketing roles with Starwood, Dolce and Wyndham among others, Michael has learned the trade on the floor.
Now Michael is one of the core leading voices in the hotels industry in why and how AI can be applied to gain an advantage.
We spoke to Michael as he prepared for his upcoming keynote at HITEC in Indianapolis in the week ahead to get his thought on the opportunities and threats and his upcoming book release which is specifically targeted to AI and hotels.
Luke Bujarski has had research roles at PhocusWright & Skift before moving on to found Extenteam and now Jethire.
Luke is used to breaking things down and taking a look inside so we caught up this week to talk about how Airbnb's move into services may have been accelerated by AI advancements.
We also dive into the jobs market and how that might be being affected by the US slow down in tourism and lots of other things in this great chat.
Mike Todasco is the former Senior Director of Innovation at Paypal and is now a Visiting Fellow at the James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence at SDSU.
Mike is at the forefront of education around AI and spends a lot time trying out the new tools and explaining their capabilities and flaws to help the rest of us know whether we should invest our time, and for what specific purpose.
In this conversation, Mike & I explore content creation via AI which is one of Mike's passions and also part of my day-to-day reality at Videreo.
Jeremy Jauncey is busy guy. He is founder of not one, but two incredible businesses in travel.
One is the B2B, Beautiful Destinations which started out just as an Instagram account and has transformed into what Fast Company has called one of the most innovative businesses in the world.
The other at Layla is B2C and is leveraging the power of AI to completely redefine the customer journey as we've known it in Web 2.0 to its new AI powered reality.
Longer conversations with a trusted source mean richer data and better outputs for users. So good in fact, consumers are willing to pay to access them!
David Amsellem has already succeeded once before with an exit to Accor for his first concierge startup, John Paul.
When generative AI came online, David couldn't sit back and not bring this superpower into a new version of concierge, this time in the travel distribution landscape.
David has partnered with the HBX Group in a joint venture and launch the new Luxurist platform so that travel advisors have AI tools at their fingertips, in the same way consumers also do but with a few clicks, also be able to book their commissions both pre trip and whilst on it.
Phocuswright have dropped a huge trends report on the effect of AI across travel and made it available free to everyone.
I chat to author Mike Coletta about the findings in the report on areas like business operations, marketing, in-destination experience and of course, distribution!
The report also raises the question around digital identity and how that interfaces with generative AI and how that changes everything in travel.
Probably worth a listen then.
Greg Oates is a legend in the DMO world.
Many people know Greg from his work with Skift but since moving out of journalism, Greg has worked agency side specialising in working with CEO's and the C-suite at DMO's on their strategy.
Recently Greg moved to Matador Network's Guide Geek as Director of AI Advocacy and is doubling down on educating decision makers on both why and how AI adoption is required, right now.