← The Digital Marketing Podcast
The Digital Marketing Podcast
The Changing User Journey - Lessons from the Travel Industry in the Age of AI
00:27:23
In this episode of The Digital Marketing Podcast, Daniel Rowles is joined by Matthew Gardiner from World Travel Market for a special look at how the user journey is being radically reshaped, and why the travel industry offers a powerful lens for...
Loading summary
Transcript23 lines
- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com in this episode, we're looking at the changing user journey and we've got a travel industry special as well. So welcome back. And this is going to be an episode of two parts. I just want to start off just talking to you about the really radical changes that we've seen, the user journey, and really what that means to our marketing. And then we're going to move into an interview with Matthew Gardner from World Travel Market to talk about particularly. Let's give it a context from a travel point of view. But if you're not in the travel industry, don't panic. This is still relevant for you because all of us travel. We've all experienced booking a holiday, booking a business trip, whatever it might be. And actually, it's really interesting to go back through the history of that, look at how that user journey has changed from going directly maybe to a hotel website, through to something like booking.com and so on and so on, all the way through to the world of AI agents to look at. It really is reflective of how user journeys have changed generally. So let's just talk about that a little bit because I don't think we've seen as many changes in the user journey as we have done in the last couple of years in any other period of time. And if we even look at the last year, it's incredible how much things have changed and how we're going to need to adjust our marketing accordingly. First of all, if we look at the search experience, well, latest stats are showing that it's about 55% of all Google searches now have an AI overview. They have an AI answer built in. You're going to Google, you're searching, you're getting what you need, and in many cases, you're not then clicking through to a website. We're only just really starting to understand what that means in terms of search engine optimization, what we're now either calling generative engine optimization or answer engine optimization. But if you look at it clearly from a user journey point of view, what does that mean? If people go to Google, they get what they want and then they don't click through to your website, what are they doing next? What next steps are they taking? So we need to try and work that out. Are they doing more searches? Are they doing longer searches? Well, they clearly are from the stats that are coming out from Google. So we need to adjust our strategies, our tactics to go through and adjust for that. But then we did an Interview with Alex Schultz, the CMO of Meta that we've just put out. And what was really interesting to me is he said something that really impacted me. He said we've been completely disrupted in the last six years because of the fact that actually we're now really not looking at connected content, but we're talking about disconnected pieces of content. Let me explain what I mean by that. So essentially, social media was a series of connected pieces of content because you liked things, you shared things, you were connected to your friends, there were businesses you followed, and what was recommended to you was based on those factors. But increasingly social media has become this whole disconnected pieces of content, essentially short form video in the format of TikToks or reels and so on. And then basically that means that AI is now predicting or reacting to what you like and giving you more of that. So the game has completely changed in social media and that's been happening for a number of years. So we've seen complete change within the search environment. We've seen complete change within the social media environment. Advertising has fundamentally changed because ad platforms like Google Ads have now moved to AI driven platforms that aren't just working on keyword signals, but they're now looking at your behavior across YouTube, the things that you're searching for and getting answers for within Google and so on, non keyword signals becoming a much, much bigger thing. So we've seen fundamental change and as marketers, I don't feel like a lot of people are really reacting to that. So at the very least, what I'd suggest you go and do is do some user testing. And informal usability testing is something we don't do enough of and just ask people to do things, go and search for this particular topic. How would you go about doing this? What would your behavior be like when you're social media, when you get to your website, what are you doing and so on. And that can really help you untangle some of these fundamental changes to see how your target audience actually act within Google. Act within social media, how do they react to ads? And actually, if you look at their experience, if they do it on their laptop rather than doing it on your machine, you get a much better view. Because this is one of the fundamental flaws in usability testing at the moment is that I'll ask you to do something, but it's not taking into account any of this context we just spoke about. Because my experience of social media, my experience of ads, my experience of search is going to be completely different to the next person's based on my previous history and what I've been doing. So it means I need to take that into account when I'm doing usability testing. So you're better off asking somebody to do it on their own laptop, their own phone, than you are trying to get them to do it in a nice clean environment on your computer and so on as well. So I thought, how could we look at this and how could we kind of step back and how can we learn from an industry that's dealt with huge rounds of changes for years and has coped with them very well? Because the latest change that we're now looking at in this user journey is agents. So the idea that, yes, I can get AI to go and find me a recipe, but now I can go and get it to buy that ingredients for me, or I can get it to go and look at travel itineraries for me and plan an entire itinerary, I could actually get it to book that for me as well. So what we're going to do is take a look at the travel industry because with the change in search, social media ads, with agents and AI coming into the journey as well, we're going to look at it through the lens of travel, something we'll all have some experience of and see the lessons that the travel industry have learned from and see how we might apply those to our different industries. So I'm going to speak with Matthew Gardner. Matthew Gardiner is from World Travel Market. He'll introduce himself and then we'll explore a little bit both of our experiences of working in the travel industry. But try and see this through the lens of your own industry and your own organization as well. So over to the interview. Okay. I am here with Matthew. Matthew, why don't you start by introducing yourself and then we'll get into things a little bit.
- [06:18]
B
I'm hugely passionate about the travel industry and I've worked across it in numerous different guises. Innovative startups to FTSE, 100 businesses in tour, operating for a global hotel chain, in aviation and with a number of tourist boards from Oman to Fort Myers in southwest Florida. Travel sparks connection, adventure, discovery. The travel sector is a wonderful industry. It brings people together, it opens minds and it builds communities across the the globe.
- [06:50]
A
So lots and lots of experience in the travel world. I mean, we cross paths because I was speaking at that conference in Greece. That was a very nice gig. They put us up in a nice hotel and it's all in a very beautiful location. But my, my other connection to travel and Matthew and I have Spoken about this a lot is what a lot of the listeners won't know. As well as running Target Internet and lecturing Imperial College, I'm also on the board for Visit Jersey. Okay, so Jersey is the kind of tourism board for the little tiny island that I live on. So I've kind of see hands on the challenges that the travel industry faces as well, because it is an exciting industry, but it's also one that faces an awful lot of challenges because when money's tight, it's one of the first things to go. The industry has changed completely and really what I wanted to get into that is how that user journey has changed. So even if not in the travel industry, there's a lot of stuff in there that we've kind of felt across a lot of different kind of user journeys as well. And I think travel is one of those industries that has really changed the most because of all this as well. So why don't you talk to us about how you feel the user journey has changed in travel and how that's kind of along your career, kind of how maybe that's changed over time.
- [07:55]
B
Yeah, I mean, just in the course of my career, the travel journey has completely transformed multiple times. 25 years ago, you went directly to a airline or hotel website. Then you had the online travel agency era. I started out in the industry in 2006 working for a luxury tourina and was probably around the time of the tipping point when the online travel agents, I'll refer to them as OTAs like Expedia and booking.com and aggregators like Skyscanner started to dominate. I'd comparison the game the next decade, 2010 onwards, the hotels really fall back with book direct campaigns, huge emphasis on loyalty programs, best rate guarantees. And I worked for choice hotels during that. Well, some of that time I had a wonderful manager there. Learned so much about digital marketing. At the same time, we suddenly had the review and social proof era. TripAdvisor, Google reviews, influencers, Facebook. Trust was reshaped. Trust shifted more and more from brands to user generated credibility. But despite that, the OTAs still held their grip. And now 2025, we're facing another seismic shift. The age of AI agents. When it comes to AI, no one knows what the future holds, not even the people who are training these systems. What I do know from a travel industry perspective is the travel funnel is collapsing into a conversation with AI and whoever owns that conversation owns the traveler. For years, for most of my career, that fight has been OTAs versus direct. Now increasingly the fight is can you even get surfaced by AI at all? And I think it's important to say AI isn't just changing search, it's rewriting the rules of trust booking and brand visibility in travel.
- [10:08]
A
Yeah, I think this is fascinating because if we look at this in practical terms, very often now when people are just starting the planning process, they are going to go to ChatGPT or whatever it might be and say, oh, plan me a three week trip to this place and they'll start the whole kind of fantasizing, making up kind of things they could do and so on and they might start refining that down. So I think that being involved in that conversation is the first point and that we need to get our. Now with the three letter terminology for this is driving me mad. I keep calling it GEO Generative Engine Optimization. It seems like the industry shifting to aeo, which is answer engine optimization. Whatever it is, this extension of search optimization is saying are we actually showing up in these conversations in the first place? So that's one piece, that's a new battle and that that will evolve over time. What I'm really interested in is then the agents where you're actually getting it to do things for you like go and book things or go and find me the top five things on TripAdvisor or whatever it might be. Because for me this is another battle, another disintermediaization opportunity sadly because instead of going directly to your website, we're going to these online travel agents, we're going to the online review websites. Well now what could happen is you say research me a trip. I want to go to the five best places in Greece, for example, over a 10 day period, here's my budget, it works out an itinerary for you and then you say go and find me the best price and suddenly you've completely lost control of where that's being booked. Because it could be directly on the website, it could be an online travel agent, could be any number of different places. And it, it's only if we go back to some of those key principles by doing best price guarantees, by going through and making sure that we've got loyalty programs and those kind of things that we're going to have any impact on this. And I'm seeing this across a whole range of industries, right? Because if I say find me a recipe, then go and buy me the ingredients, unless I define where I want it to buy that those products from, then potentially it's going to choose the supermarket it uses, all the retailer it uses and at the moment for example, ChatGPT has got this relationship with Shopify where they've just signed a deal with Shopify and it's basically prioritizing Shopify brands. So the solution to that is very often brand loyalty, right? So if I am a retailer and I have got my loyalty card and I get loyalty pricing, then I'm going to specify, I want you to go to this shop or I want to go to this hotel or to this travel agent and so on as well. And actually there's some brand doing themselves some damage around this at the moment as well, because British Airways, I think, is a fantastic example of this, where they've got a loyalty program. Lots of people stick with them because. And they suddenly changed it and made it much harder to achieve certain status levels. What does that do? It means that people kind of go, I don't, I'm not going to achieve that status now. I'm not going to bother being so loyal. So it can be, it can be a real problem. Whereas I am an absolute huge Bonvoy fan. I've got, I use only, I will only use Bonvoy hotels, generally speaking, unless somebody wants to send me to their hotel, please get in contact and I'll be very happy to stay. And the thing is, because of that I get such a benefit. I will travel further distances, I will stay in places that I'm probably adding loads of time onto my travel because I want the points, because it becomes a bit of an obsession. It becomes. So that gamification suddenly becomes a big thing as well. So, I mean, what are your takes on what it means for the industry?
- [13:22]
B
The content strategy shifts from those keywords to conversation. So the game isn't ranking for Yosemite hotels anymore, it's being the source that AI sites in a conversation. And you talk about the distribution landscape. Structured data is the new distribution. As AI acts like a new global distribution system and brands must make offers machine readable.
- [13:49]
A
Yeah, I think that whole markup schema thing becomes really important. So one of the great examples I saw the other day was, let's take the Yosemite example, like a complete guide to travel in the natural parks. And then basically what it did, it had a huge list of frequently asked questions that they kind of worked out what other questions that people might be asking. And it was things about safety, it was things about travel times, it was things about where to stay, it was about how to move around within the park, it was about wildlife, all those kind of things because they've done the research, which is kind of widely available with tools like Answer the Public that will go through and tell you what are the questions related to this, but then having the best answers to those questions, but also then going through and making sure that they've kind of done it in a structured markup way. So in the code of the website, going through and saying this is a frequently asked question and so on as well. And then going through an understanding. Actually I need to do multi language because this is an international destination. I'm going to need to answer those questions in different languages as well. A really nice technique we've been seeing that's been working really well is that you answer a question in text, but you also answer the question as a video. And what you're seeing is in these AI overviews in Google a lot that you'll get the AI overview. Hopefully it will reference your particular website as well. But actually it's showing relative resources and quite often it's a video that answers the question as well. So I think that content strategy. Peter Absolutely right. Whether this is travel or something else, that taking that question based approach. The other thing I've seen from a kind of technical point of view is that things like discussion forums like Reddit and Cura and all those kind of places are being picked up more and more. So making sure you are involved in those conversations, you're being mentioned in those places. So advocacy becomes wildly important because you want to enable that army of advocates. And suddenly these things start to tie together because if you can be the best answer to the question, if you then get someone through to your hotel or destination or whatever it might be and you can make them have a brilliant time, they're way more likely to leave a review or leave comments or leave advice to other people online as well. So building that community engagement can have a really big impact on how much you're showing up in the AI artists from that point of view as well.
- [15:54]
B
I was going to say it's interesting that you mentioned the national parks in the usa Brand USA recently hired a chief AI officer, very impressive lady called Jeanette Roche, who one of, one of the key things that she does as well is actually support the sort of, you know, localized regional tourist boards in doing the type of thing that you, you know, just highlight and talked about there.
- [16:16]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things we're doing with Visit Jersey, we're kind of looking at, look, we've got all these people have amazing hotels, these people have amazing activities. It's like, how can we help them generate Content, how do we help them to go? What are the questions that people are going to ask down to that really kind of granular level of detail. So if I want to go kayaking on a certain beach within Jersey, is there an answer of like, what are the best kayaking routes, what do I need to know about the tides, what time of day can I go? And all those kind of things. So actually in enabling that army of people to go and create content and answer those questions at a really granular level can have a really big impact as well. And I think that does suddenly become a role. Like we had marketing managers, we're probably going to have to expand people that are creating content exactly as you just said that.
- [17:00]
B
I guess that granular detail piece, it's essentially the voice of place matters. Again, it's that move content wide. People searching flights to Rome to suddenly they're asking why, what's the best place for a four day trip with kids in October where it's warm but not crowded and destinations must answer that level of granularity in the content that they're producing?
- [17:22]
A
Yeah, and I think this is, this has been a thing for a while. Right. And I think we're just being forced into now, which is great because for a long time if I went to a hotel and they said here are our rooms and I'm like, well, I can see generically what the rooms look like when you took a picture five years ago when you built your website. Yeah. But I don't know what the rooms look like now and I don't know what the. I can see there's a walkway down to the beach, but what does that look like in different seasons? And I want to imagine this holiday and that's part of the joy of booking a holiday. So actually granular detail becomes so much more massively important as well. So, so what kind of the trends are you seeing across the industry as well? Because I know in world travel market you do lots of talks about all these different trends as well. So what kind of trends are coming out?
- [18:03]
B
Overarching theme of the Marketing Summit is about driving marketing effectiveness, building the kind of marketing resilience that stands up to real world change. And there is a lot of change in the world at the moment and there's a lot of change with regards to travel. I think one of the interesting trends that we're also exploring in the world travel market is the rise of live tourism and how live tourism and events are playing their part in being destination magnets. Live events have emerged as Powerful catalysts for destination appeal, drawing visitors not just for what a place is, but for what happens there. Destinations, I would say, can no longer afford to act like museum creators. They need to think like event producers. Because life tourism is one of the most powerful ways to drive demand, boost economies and build deeper emotional connections with audiences. One of the episodes that you produced, Daniel, that I loved was the the Taylor Swift Works. And In Singapore, her six show run was estimated to bring in between 300 and 500 million Singaporean dollars into the local economy.
- [19:12]
A
What was interesting, when we did that interview, it was a kind of a slight tangential one. I was like, we got this email, I said, someone from Harvard Business Reviews written a book about Taylor Swift. Do you want to interview them? And I was like, okay, what angle? And it was kind of like the marketing genius of what Taylor Swift does. And one of the things that was really interesting, exactly to your point about live tourism, was that she allows people to live stream her concerts. Now you'd think, well, that's that most people, they're going to ban that because you don't want, you want to be able to buy tickets. But actually the amount of amplification that causes is absolutely huge. And if you can tie that into your particular destination, I think that's a really key thing. I mean, a lot of people are asking, why am I on the ball to visit Jersey? Well, the one thing is, you realize is that tourism is a tide that floats all boats. And what I mean by that is if you've got more tourism, you've got more flights coming in. So you've got that link from an island is really important. But also you've got more bars, you've got more restaurants, you've got more things to do for the general population, there's more kids activities. So it's really important for the local economy to kind of do that. And digital can be a big enabler for that. And you talk about bringing money into the economy. One of the things that we did with Jersey was we said, well actually if you look at the Lord of the Rings films and things like that, they've driven huge amounts of visitors New Zealand. So actually that connection between other media and how that impacts tourism as well. And we said, well, what's Jersey famous for? TV shows? Well, we've got Berger from the 80s. That was a huge thing. Right, let's remake Bern. Yeah, exactly. And then we went off and we engaged with an amazing company called Banerj who produced the new series of ber and they used it to relaunch KTV or UTV as it's now known as well. And it's the most popular show they've ever done. And we could see you launched Berrack and there's a huge spike in people searching for Jersey and the main actor came out civil. Jersey is actually the second star of the show. Because it's such a beautiful place. We were actually able to get that to a wide audience. So I think this live event piece is really interesting because that thing of getting people to share the place they're in to amplify the beauty, the interesting, the history, whatever it might be. I love that idea that you're not creating a museum, you're actually creating those live experiences as well and actually just leveraging the ability of social media to kind of to go through and do that as well. So what else should you think that people should be looking out for?
- [21:20]
B
I think you also highlighted another key trend there, how TV shows and the likes of Netflix have become really powerful in terms of inspiring where people go to next. One of the other trends that I would call out as well is sort of soft adventure. One of the biggest shifts we've seen post Covid is the rise of soft adventure and the growing demands for authentic, meaningful experiences. Travelers today aren't necessarily looking to summit Everest, but they are looking to step out of their routine even a little. You mentioned kayaking in, in, in Jersey it's that sunset kayaking piece or it's learning to cook with locals. It's hiking. A viewpoint that only locals know about. My work with Amman with experience Aman, the tour operators who are growing there, they aren't the ones offering the fly and flop holidays. They're the ones running touring programs. The ones who are offering come into MassCat, yes, but then get out, really see what it's all about. Another trend I think we have to mention is that short trips and city breaks are struggling now. Part of that I think is the cost of flying. And that really is putting short breaks under pressure. Why pay for such an expensive flight ticket if you're only going to be somewhere three or four days? So places that are doing well are places that are seen as extended stays. And yes, you might fly to Washington D.C. spend three, four days there. But actually the strength of the proposition is everything else that surrounds D.C. i guess of course there is also a green sustainability pressure that is impacting those sort of shorter trips. Sustainability is evolving from a niche to baseline expectation. The say do gap remains a challenge. And according to the world travel and Tourism Council's 2025 report Bridging the Sei Do Gap. Whilst many travelers express strong support for sustainability in actual bookings, cost quality, numerous other factors still outrank green credentials. Travelers today though, are increasingly making choices with purpose. Sustainability is becoming a driving force in how people choose to explore the world.
- [23:35]
A
I was really interested you talk about some of these things. Like the soft adventure piece was an interesting one because I'll give you another example from the Jersey thing. We looked at what people had done and they said, well, how are they taking advantage what they've already got? Okay. And if you look at the 500 in Scotland, so the route that you can do around Scotland and these kind of trail paths, and we went, you know what we've got in Jersey, we've got a tidal trail, we have got an island with a 50 mile perimeter and we already have paths, you can walk it, it's one of the most beautiful things. So we say, okay, well let's take that and kind of brand that and that taking aspects of what you've got and bringing those to life a little bit more as well and then saying, but actually not everyone's going to do a 50 mile walk, but there's bits of it you can, you do the foodie tour, you go through and you do the history tour, you. So I think that's the whole thing of kind of getting off the beaten track and getting people to understand what's kind of relevant for them as well, I think. And I think what's interesting about travel is it's reflective of the broader set of what's going on in the world. Our concerns about sustainability. I want to go and do something different to get out of our stressful day by day lives, our concerns about the cost of things and so on as well. So I think these user journey changes, you can look at this from a travel viewpoint and everyone's got a view and travel because everyone travels. But also you can apply a lot of these lessons to other aspects of marketing. In terms of what can we take that we've already got and actually leverage that and do something better with it as well. How has that journey changed? What does that kind of process of having a conversation rather than just searching look like?
- [24:56]
B
Your, your Tideboard trail is a great example of that. It's about giving identity and a sense of brand to the assets that you do have. It's about bringing those assets alive and yeah, giving them identity.
- [25:09]
A
Exactly that. So, so go on, tell us then about a bit more about world travel market because I know it's such an important part of the kind of travel industry and then if people want to come along, how can they get involved?
- [25:19]
B
World Travel Market in London, it's the most influential travel trade event out there.
- [25:26]
A
It's a lot of fun as well.
- [25:27]
B
It is a lot of fun. It is a huge amount of fun and I love it. I love it for its sheer scale. Around 50,000 people from every corner of the globe descend on my home city, all buzzing with ideas and opportunities. The chaotic energy of it all is, I find it electrifying. And every year I leave expired, exhausted, absolutely exhausted. The amount of steps I do across Excel. And I also leave more excited than ever about the future of track. This year WTM is on track to become the largest and most influential edition that we've had in its 45 year history. I don't know if you've been to the Excel center recently, but it has just undergone a massive expansion. I mean it was big already but you know, they've grown Excel by it's about 25% increase in floor space. There's an additional 25,000 square m meters available and you know, World Travel Market is expanding into that space, growing once more. Brooke, who heads up the conference program, you know, brings so much energy to the team and together we achieved a 75% increase in attendees to the marketing summit in 2024. So the pressure is on this year to at least match that, ideally grow it even further. And we have such an exciting lineup of speakers that I am. Yeah, hopefully that's going to be the case.
- [26:51]
A
So what we'll do, we'll put all the links through to World Travel Market into the show notes. So target Internet.com forward/podcast and you'll better link through and get signed up and get attending in there as well. And Matthew Gardiner, so thanks so much for joining us and talk to us about the changing user journey in travel.
- [27:07]
B
Thank you ever so much, Daniel.
- [27:10]
A
For more episodes resources to leave a review or to get in contact, go to targetinternet.com forward/podcast.