Travel marketing faces fundamental shift as AI reshapes how customers discover brands
Travel companies are grappling with a central question: How do you market when AI intermediaries stand between your brand and the customer?
Executives from Hopper, Marriott, Booking.com, Hotels.com, and Google gathered at Phocuswright's Travel Marketing AI Summit to discuss the implications. Their answers ranged from "rebuild everything" to "keep doing what works." What unified them: AI is no longer peripheral. It's remaking the rules.
The case for radical change
Frederic Lalonde, CEO of Hopper, offered the starkest assessment. He predicted Google search itself is disappearing, along with the traffic it sends to travel sites. Links will vanish. Traditional marketing channels will become obsolete.
The real problem, Lalonde said, isn't visibility-it's invisibility. Today, customers are present 100% of the time when they buy travel. He expects that number to drop sharply as AI agents handle transactions without human involvement. "What happens to the world when 50% of what's sold on a travel site, there's nobody there to buy it?" Lalonde asked. "They didn't see the brand, they didn't see the flow, they didn't see the advertising."
If AI completes the sale, traditional marketing has no audience.
The case for continuity
Ben Harrell, managing director of Booking.com, disagreed. AI hasn't changed how his company thinks about marketing "at all." The strategy remains the same: be where consumers are, across every platform.
Google and Marriott take a middle position. Nelson Boyce, managing director of travel for Google, acknowledged the pace of change is unprecedented. "We couldn't be having the type of conversations we're having today a year ago," he said. But Google isn't abandoning search-it's testing how to integrate AI across its ecosystem.
Drew Pinto, executive vice president and chief revenue officer for Marriott, compared the moment to the dot-com era. The transformation is real, but history suggests the winners aren't predetermined. He cited JCPenney, once a top e-commerce retailer, which filed for bankruptcy in 2020. Brick-and-mortar retail, widely predicted to die, survived.
Visibility in the age of AI search
Fifty-six percent of U.S. consumers now use AI for travel decisions, according to Phocuswright Research. Travel brands are responding by optimizing for generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO), alongside traditional SEO.
Marriott is taking a technical approach. First, get your data layer right. Second, distribute that data to AI providers. Third, optimize for discoverability in AI models the way you optimize for Google's index.
Hari Nair, SVP and general manager of Hotels.com, emphasized that search is becoming conversational. Optimization differs across browsers, email inboxes, and AI assistants. What works in one format doesn't work in another.
Boyce stressed that first-party data matters more than ever. "Your data stream is very important. Your technical readiness is also very important." But he added that the core strategy doesn't change-brands still need to be discoverable, just in new places.
Advertising in AI platforms
OpenAI began testing ads in ChatGPT in February and reported "encouraging" early results. Google hasn't ruled out ads in Gemini. Hotels.com and other travel brands want in on these new ad spaces.
Harrell noted that travel marketing adapted when mobile became dominant. The same will happen with AI. "It will change how we go about things, but overall strategy doesn't change."
The influencer question
Ben Harrell made a striking claim: people already trust AI models more than social media influencers. That trust gap has widened in just over a year.
But influencing isn't dead. Some travel companies are doubling down. Travis Pittman, co-founder of TourRadar, said influencers reach audiences no other channel can access. The trust they build is real.
Others see a shift toward authenticity. Michelle Vincent, CEO of Magnet Media, said companies are moving away from traditional influencers and putting their own executives on camera instead. "We're seeing a lot more executive-generated content," she said. "A lot of experimentation with really trying to bring authenticity to the storytelling."
Christine Petersen, CEO of Savanta, agreed influencers will remain important. What matters is quality and authenticity, not the influencer's follower count.
Separating hype from reality
Hari Nair warned against what he called "novel AI"-gimmicks companies adopt because they sound advanced. "I think most companies who are making an impact are not trying to do this from a standpoint of gimmicks," he said. Focus on useful AI instead.
Pinto acknowledged the hype. "There is so much hyperbole out there, and there are so many things that people are claiming that may not come true." But the hype itself moves companies forward by forcing them to experiment.
Being an early mover doesn't guarantee success. Lalonde noted that the dominance of Expedia, Booking, and Google has stabilized the market. AI could open opportunities for smaller players to grow faster. "Try to figure this out, because it's very, very real," he said.
For marketing professionals navigating this transition, AI learning paths for marketing managers cover the technical and strategic foundations needed to optimize campaigns in an AI-driven environment.
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