5 Tips for Travel Advisors to Enhance Marketing with A.I.

Generative AI is undoubtedly a game-changing innovation in many sectors, and the travel industry is no different.  

Travel Market Place Toronto, held June 24 to 26, featured breakout sessions for travel advisors on how to use AI tools to elevate their business. Panos Panagiotakopoulos and Kent Peel from Seneca Polytechnic gave a presentation on using AI to save time, while Nikita France, founder and CEO of Travel Agent Collective, focused her session on social media marketing with AI tools. 

The AI-focused breakout sessions were packed with excited advisors and agency owners, eager to learn more about this new, evolving technology. Based on these presentations, it’s clear that travel advisors have nothing to fear from AI.  

The following tips are five ways for travel advisors to embrace generative AI to better market their travel business.                   

1. Be specific with prompts
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can create marketing materials based on instructions, also known as “prompts.” However, because generative AI is predictive, its responses tend to be very generic—and generic content does not sell travel. (Peel joked that AI stands for artificial intelligence, not actual intelligence.)

France suggested being specific when inputting instructions. For example, she recommended telling ChatGPT your brand values, whom the content is for, and how you want the writing to sound. If you want a caption for an Instagram post about a new resort, make sure to add in all the relevant details (the resort location, the social media platform, etc.). If you want a 200-word blog post targeting the SEO keyword “bleisure travel,” include that in the prompt. The more information you put into AI instructions, the more personalized the result.

ChatGPT will remember past instructions so you can build and develop a tone over several prompts. Instructions like “conversational tone,” “first-person perspective,” and “travel expert” can all be beneficial for personalizing generated content.   

2. Give AI-generated posts your voice
While it may be quick and easy to ask ChatGPT to generate 10 social media posts, if the writing doesn’t sound like you, it won’t be as effective in selling your brand. 

France advised using AI-generated content as a starting point. While there’s nothing wrong with just using what the AI creates, editing or revising the wording to better reflect your brand’s values and personality will elevate the writing. Before using anything created by AI, stop to consider the tone: Does that sound like you? Is the writing’s voice consistent with the traits you want others to associate with your brand? How could it be better?   

France suggested adding personal anecdotes as a way to add a human touch to text written by ChatGPT. This can be as simple as a brief one-sentence aside related to the subject—the important thing is to keep it authentically you.  

3. Use AI to brainstorm 
Tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini (formerly Bard), Canva, and Estelle AI (Travel Agent Collective’s custom AI tool, built on ChatGPT 4.0) can be great for brainstorming content ideas. Generative AI is predictive, relying on large amounts of data to create writing via essentially informed guessing. The same information that allows these programs to “write” convincingly also makes them great for creating multiple variations of a basic idea within specified parameters. 

For example, a user could ask Google Gemini to create 25 travel blog ideas on wellness, written from the perspective of an expert and for an audience interested in luxury travel. Chances are, at least a few will be a good starting point for content.         

France argued that most travel content on social media platforms is inspirational or aspirational. One way to stand out is to focus your marketing content on being a problem-solver—and AI can be used to brainstorm ideas for this too. While you may have a rough idea of what kinds of problems your clients associate with a subject, AI can generate a whole list that you can use for ideas: you can literally ask Gemini to create a chart of 10 fears, frustrations, and desires associated with a topic (i.e. luxury travel), and the AI will generate a response based on its data.           

4. Embrace generative AI as a virtual assistant
Panagiotakopoulos and Peel focused their presentation on explaining what generative AI is, as well as how to use it to save time. They demonstrated how the technology can be used to do research; identify trends, or summarize reports. In other words: you can assign tasks to AI tools to free up your time to focus on the human side of selling travel. 

Peel described this as treating AI tools as “a very eager virtual assistant.” For example, a travel advisor could as Google Gemini to analyze when a client is most likely to book travel, or what kind of upsells to recommend (like booking an excursion). Additionally, one could front-end a lot of this work for increased efficiency, using scheduling tools to contact clients or publish targeted content at strategic times.  

AI tools could also be used to analyze multiple data sources (such as social media posts) and identify correlations or patterns, which an advisor can use to strategize with marketing. For example, Google Gemini could look at the Facebook activity of specified clients and identify the most popular travel subjects, allowing the advisor to develop a marketing strategy personalized to their ideal client base. 

Additionally, tools like Gemini or even ChatGPT can scour the internet for information and then compile lists, making research much faster. This could be something like asking for the 25 best restaurants in Naples for people with celiac disease, or 20 ideas for adventure-loving seniors visiting Rotterdam. These responses can be adjusted with further filters as needed (like specifying restaurants open for lunch).   

5. Fact-check and review everything
AI is as impressive as it is powerful; however, it is not infallible. Anything that is AI-generated could have factual errors or be otherwise imperfect. While the responses are based on information, issues can arise when data isn’t available or is misleading, and in its nascent form, AI cannot reliably differentiate between good (accurate) information and falsehoods. Always verify that the information in a response is legitimate before using it.

For example, if using ChatGPT to find 10 vegetarian-friendly restaurants in a city, make sure that all the restaurants actually exist, are indeed still in operation, and that the menus do have vegetarian offerings. Similarly, you could use AI to recommend a walking tour of a destination—but you’ll need to verify that the attractions exist and are within reasonable walking distance.