Everything AI in Travel

In this episode of the Everything AI in Travel podcast, Tony Carne sits down with Bethany Reitsma from the Travel Technology Association to explore the fast-changing world of travel tech startups, AI-native companies, angel investing, and the future of innovation in travel. Bethany shares how the Travel Technology Association evolved from representing major industry players like Booking, Expedia,...

They raised money in AI travel…which already makes Odynn one of the rare ones. In this episode of the Everything AI in Travel Podcast, I sit down with John Taylor Garner, founder of Odynn, to unpack what they’re building at the intersection of travel, loyalty, fintech, and AI. We get into: Why John left a top trading desk at Merrill to start building in travel What he learned from his first startu...

In this episode of the Everything AI in Travel Podcast, I sit down with Jason Swick, a longtime Simpleview leader who spent more than 15 years deep in destination marketing before launching Swix AI. We get into: Why DMO teams have a capacity problem, a speed problem, and a knowledge problem Why most AI adoption today is still tactical, not strategic The real issue with tools like N8N and Make for...

Egor Karpovich built 12 AI agents in 5 weeks… …and now they’re running parts of his travel company without sleeping. In this episode of the Everything AI & Travel Podcast, I sit down with Egor Karpovich from Travel Code to unpack one of the most fascinating AI setups I’ve seen in travel so far. Egor explains how he and his team went from no-code workflows to a real agent workforce inside their...

In this episode of Everything AI & Travel, I sit down with Robert Cole (Rock Cheetah) — Cornell hotel grad, ex-Four Seasons marketing leader, Sabre/Travelocity-era hotel distribution veteran, and a longtime Phocuswright analyst. We get practical on what “AI readiness” really means for travel businesses: Why digital identity becomes the foundation for the agentic world The difference between tr...

John Lyotier is back — and we go deep on the .BOT future. AI has moved from “tools” to agents, and John’s building at the sharp end: hundreds of AI-built travel brands, an agentic network underneath, and now a big bet on .bot domains (trip.bot, hotels.bot, ski.bot…). We talk: Why .bot could become the identity layer for agent-to-agent commerce What “agentic search” means for travel distribution GE...

This week I’m joined by  Jason Bryant , VP Strategy (Consumer Applications) at Oracle and founder/former CEO of Nor1. We talk about: How Nor1 started (perishable inventory + willingness-to-pay for upgrades) What changes when a startup gets absorbed into a Fortune 500 (risk profile, security standards, speed) Why the next phase of AI in hospitality is  orchestration , not “the next best model” Why ...

Welcome to 2026 and the first episode of the year on  Everything AI in Travel . As tradition now, I’m joined by returning guest  Christian Watts  to do something most people avoid:  we revisit our predictions from last year and grade them . Christian ran our 2025 predictions through an AI scoring system (he swears he didn’t rig it), and we go point-by-point on what actually happened: Search change...

Welcome to the final episode in the series on using AI to  attract high value visitors and boost your career . In this wrap-up, we cover the  Image-to-LinkedIn Post Creator , a tool designed for one simple job: upload any image (chart, infographic, screenshot, photo, even a napkin sketch)  and instantly generate a  structured, high-engagement LinkedIn post  you can copy and paste. We stay consiste...

In Episode 9 of the  “9 AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors”  series, we review a powerful outreach tool designed for  professional growth and B2B partnerships : the  LinkedIn Top Voice Post Creator AI . This AI is trained on the structure and quality patterns used by  LinkedIn Top Voices  — creators whose posts consistently perform at a high level and are recognised by LinkedIn as trusted, in...

In this episode of the “9 Free AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors” series, we enter the Outreach phase of the framework and review one of the most practical tools for organic growth: the Social Media Expert AI. This AI is designed to transform long-form destination content (blog posts, itineraries, guides, articles) into ready-to-post social content — single viral posts or full multi-day camp...

In Episode 7 of the “9 AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors” series, we introduce a different kind of AI: the How-To Articles Writer (Educational AI) — a tool designed specifically to help DMO teams, tour operators, and tourism stakeholders understand and overcome real, everyday professional challenges. Unlike the previous tools in this series, this AI is not about external promotion. It’s abou...

In this episode of the  Everything AI in Travel  podcast, we dive deep into the  vacation rental  world and the fast-changing landscape of  property management systems (PMS)  with guest  Shahar , founder of  Boom , an AI-native operating system for vacation rental managers. From Miami, Shahar shares how he went from doing hundreds of millions in real-estate deals to “accidentally” building a vacat...

In Episode 6 of the “9 Free AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors” series, we review one of the most practical tools in the entire framework: the  Self-Guided Tour Creator AI  — built to help you create  real, walkable, time-logical itineraries  your visitors can use  on the ground  once they’re already in your destination. This tool sits in the “content” phase of the framework, but unlike inspi...

In this episode of the  Everything AI in Travel  podcast (now sitting in the  top 3 travel-technology podcasts on Apple Podcasts ), Tony sits down with  Healy Cypher, co-founder & CEO of BoomPop , a company that just raised  $25M  to make planning in-person events, offsites and group travel radically easier with AI. We dig into Healy’s wild founder journey — from growing up in Saudi Arabia, to...

In this episode of the “9 Free AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors” series, we move from strategy into  content creation  and I walk you through the  Travel Blogger AI —a free tool that turns your destination expertise into long-form, inspirational blog articles designed to attract your ideal travelers. You’ll see step-by-step how the tool: Fits into the 4-phase framework:  Strategize → Intell...

AI generated summary of McKinsey's latest report into agentic commerce for those who don't want to read the full 27 pages

Welcome back to Episode 4 of our  Nine Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors & Future-Proof Your Career With AI  series. If you’ve made it this far, you’re already ahead of most people in the travel industry. Today, we dive into one of the most practical and operationally valuable AI tools in Santiago’s suite: the  Statistical Forecasting AI . Whether you’re a DMO, hotel, tour operator, attract...

In this episode of Everything AI in Travel, I’m joined by Aimee Armstrong, co-founder of Altitude AI, an AI-native startup that’s taking on the messy, unloved world of corporate travel for SMEs – and breaking a few ceilings along the way. Aimee’s journey is wild: from motorcycle mechanic on Australian superbike race teams, rebuilding race engines and specialising in suspension, to product leadersh...

If you work in travel and your company  still  isn’t taking AI seriously… your career might be at risk. This episode gives you a  practical, real-world way to catch up fast . Today, we hand the mic to  Dr. Santiago Rodriguez  — educator, PhD, and creator of a suite of free AI tools built specifically for travel professionals, tourism boards, and small businesses. In just  15 minutes , Santiago sho...

On today's episode of our new and FREE educational series to help everyone get up to speed on AI, instructor Santiago takes us into the first tool - The Tourism Expert. The Tourism Expert is a custom GPT which you can access for FREE to help you build out your initial strategy for your business. Santiago takes you step by step on exactly how you use this tool to build an actionable 3 month pla...

In this first episode of our new education series, educator Santiago Rodriguez PHD takes us through exactly what this FREE course entails, how you can use it and where to find the tools. The aim of this education series is to help your business attract high value visitors and boost your career if you are an employee. www.santiagor.com/free-ai-tools

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 pro...

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 competiti...

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.