Everything AI in Travel

In this episode we go deep into the world of Destination Marketing Organizations with Adam Stoker. Adam has many touchpoints with DMO's. He runs the Relic Agency where most of the clients are in the DMO camp but in 2024 Adam decided to build a digital town square for knowledge sharing across the DMO world, TourismIQ. Really love the story about how a DMO decided to focus on experiences for familie...

Jessie Fischer grew up in the hotels business and now using that lifetime of knowledge to bend AI into a shape that can serve guests better, unlock new revenue opportunities for accommodation providers and make their lives easier. What Jessie is building has really caught the attention of the travel tech world. In an unprecedented scene, we saw another founder of an AI company who has raised a lot...

On this episode Jason Halberstadt joined us all the way Quito, Ecuador. Jason gave the low down on how his business had evolved from a long-standing marketing agency for small tourism business and taken the new AI capabilities to create something special specifically for this market. A great example of specialising both regionally and at a specific ICP that was already well known, including their...

AI is a global phenomenon but also a regionalised opportunity. On this episode I caught up with Varun Gupta who was having some great early success in the Indian market. helping entrenched travel companies like Thomas Cook take early advantage of the power of generative AI. Gupta's Pathfndr business uses AI to create dynamic packages within travel agent systems so they can essentially sell pretty...

Janette Roush is the leading voice for AI and Destination Marketing. That is now 100% official as since we recorded this edition of the podcast, Janette landed the role of SVP, Innovation and Chief AI Officer at Brand USA. Janette tells it how it is, in simple language so that everyone can easily understand & follow along to get started on their own AI journey. Making the complex, seem simple...

Gilad Berenstein holds a unique place in travel planning world. Gilad is not just another talking head commentator but seasoned veteran as the founder of UTrip - an early iteration of this genre which has exploded with AI. Now Gilad holds a position of whether to put venture money towards these and other AI ideas as well as being on the board of Virtuoso and a thoughtful commentator on all happeni...

In this brand new episode we talk to one of the pioneers of bringing the OTA model to the multi-day tour market in Travis Pittman from TourRadar. I wanted to talk Travis because TourRadar is not an AI native business but it absolutely is an AI forward business. I had heard stories of how Travis had spearheaded a culture within the business around exploration and experimentation with AI and wanted...

Generative AI could play a massive role in bringing sustainable travel options mainstream. Unfortunately like most things sustainable travel, there are a lot of people talking about it and not many people actually doing something about it. Cat Jones isn't one of those. She is a powerhouse of action and utilising AI to solve complex logistical problems that make it easier for all us to make more su...

In this REWIND we talk about the hot button topic of personalisation with AI. Stephanie Daniel from Legends isn't just theorising about the possibilities, rather she and her team are building the pieces needed for this to become a reality. Generative AI can absolutely tweak each piece of consumer content making it specific and relevant to the user. However it needs to know who that user is and bui...

Brennen Bliss and his Propellic Marketing are a force in travel SEO and digital marketing world. In this REWIND episode Brennen breaks down what those in travel need to know about he impact of AI on how marketing can and will work in the future. Brennen doesn't pull any punches and his customer's results seems to tell the story for him.

All my guests are inspirational in my eyes but I think, publicly at least, it was this conversation with the CEO of the hottest AI startup in travel, Andy Moss from Mindtrip that really got people interested and noticing this little podcast venture. And Andy didn't disappoint bringing his huge brain and vast experience to the table to lay it all out for us. Andy is one of 12 co-founders in the Min...

In this REWIND episode from early in 2024, I really wanted to niche down to the Hotel industry specifically and find out what might be happening in that particular sector of the travel industry. I got Susan Barry from the Top Floor Podcast, one of my favourites, because Susan had previously chatted to many innovators in accommodation who were leveraging AI on behalf of the sector. Susan gives us t...

The explosion of AI trip planners was one of the core characteristics of the early generative AI boom. In this REWIND we talk to one of those early founders, Connor Wilson from Pilot. Actually, by the time in early 2024 we had this chat, AI Trip Planners were starting to go the way of chatbots in the way they could induce a collective eyeroll from the travel tech audience. Whether through feature...

In this REWIND we go back to the chat with John Lyotier from Travelai.com Travelai.com have been forerunner in creating a cash flowing business from leveraging generative AI. There aren't too many others out there in travel who can say that, even less who are actually touching the consumer. Beyond that, John is one of the really big thinkers in the Travel + AI world. He is the guy playing chess th...

In this REWIND we look back on the chat with Eduardo Schuch, co-founder at the hot AI startup, Tailbox. Tailbox came spinning out of MIT with smart people and money secured to see what they could bring to the new AI driven market in travel. With no-one from travel on the initial team, this was a real outsiders view of what is possible, not worrying about what is not.

In this REWIND episode we caught up with our first female founder in the AI + space, Kim Bennett. Kim is building Atlas Guru, an AI tool for the travel advisor industry to help streamline the process of building out a complex bespoke itinerary and getting a comprehensive and beautifully presented offer in front of a client. Whilst much of the attention (as usual) is focused on consumer apps in the...

The very first episode for the year of 2024 looked at the subject everyone was thinking about, contemplating or actively working towards - chat bots! I spoke to Dan (The Man) Flores from Satisfi Labs who were well ahead of the curve on this one having built out their own native AI pre the release of open generative AI capabilities. The chat bot is much maligned, partly because of the poor output o...

In this early episode I chatted to Christian Watts from Magpie. I can't think of another person from travel who paid as close attention to the rise of AI than Christian in the early days. Christian's almost daily video explainers on LinkedIn were an incredible source of knowledge for the industry as we all figured out what generative AI was and more importantly, what it could do for our industry....

This week we go deep on marketing and how AI is transforming both what you can do but also what is happening to you if you do nothing! Tahnee Perry is ex marketing from Phocuswright so knows both marketing & travel extremely well and covers off these AI related topics in her daily posts on LinkedIn and her newsletter, Zero to Unicorn. Hear real use cases and Tahnee’s favourite tools and tips o...

This episode was first recorded with Jeff Kischuk from Tripian just before XMAS of 2023 but still remains highly relevant today. Many of the glitches of generative AI have not really sorted themselves out as some might have hoped meaning the deeper tech of products built pre-gen AI, like Tripian, are still more robust in the truth of their recommendations. The flip side of the coin is universal gl...

In the second of our REWIND series as we relaunch all episodes onto Spotify, we go back to the incredible week of crisis at OpenAI where founder Sam Altman was sacked, reinstated and then had the board sacked! What a time. I was lucky that week to be catching up with Shie Gabbai for Roam Around (since acquired) who was founder at one of the hottest AI startups in travel at that moment. The problem...

In this special REWIND episode of the Everything AI in Travel podcast, your host Tony Carne take you back to the very beginning with our very first ever episode with Fred Chanut from In Marketing We Trust. In Marketing We Trust are a remarkable business who quickly learned to leverage generative AI technology to optimise for their enterprise clients like Expedia leading to 10's of millions in extr...