September 23, 2025 • 24 mins
What specific AI-related things are good hotel commercial leaders actually doing today? Great question! It's already everywhere, so we got deep and practical for this episode. We talk about:
- How Al agents are starting to handle everything from customer service queries to qualifying sales leads, reshaping the whole workforce
- How AI is elevating guest experience through customer data, CRM, and audience management
- Where AI is getting all its hotel data
- The coming drop in search engine volume
- Tools you can use to optimize your website and format your content for AI readability
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Brown (00:08):
I'm Matt Brown.
That person you can't see overthere is Jeff Borman.
We host the show together and Ithink, jeff, I think we do a
great job of hosting it.
It's incredible.
We've done this for almost 80episodes.
As we near 100, we're going tohave to do something special.
Almost 80 episodes, as we near100, we're going to have to do
(00:29):
something special.
Today we are continuing adiscussion about the state of AI
.
I know it's everybody'sfavorite topic, and for good
reason, but we're going to giveit a little bit more of a spin
related to the exponentialgrowth rates within travel and
why people are using it fortravel.
We're in that phase right nowwhich reminds me a lot of the
late 90s of everybody wants tocome over like the soothsayer
(00:51):
but they're not quite surewhat's gonna happen, but they
still wanna kind of projectauthority.
If there's one thing Jeff and Ido really well, it's not
project authority, so you don'thave to have that worry with us.
Jeff Borman (01:02):
Or even knowledge, really.
Matt Brown (01:03):
No, no, no knowledge .
How, so you don't have to havethat worry with us?
Or even knowledge, really, no,no, no knowledge.
How can the world of people newto engaging in AI approach this
?
Because it's, all, I think, alittle daunting.
Chatgpt is not so dauntingbecause people are still using
it.
Most people who don't knowanything about AI are using
they're gingerly using somethinglike ChatGPT as essentially
just a glorified search engine.
But let's start with what theOTAs are doing today.
Jeff Borman (01:29):
Expedia held its Explore conference in May and
shared some insights into thereal-world uses they have today
with AI-powered features focusedon really driving higher
engagement and conversion.
They recently launchedautomated AI filters, a
functionality that's driving 35%conversion, lift and lower
(01:51):
cancellation rates, in additionto the existing AI-generated
property summaries andAI-powered property Q&A, which
is elevating the content theydisplay and that's driving 2X
conversion.
Expedia guides its suppliers sohotel, community or air or car
to ensure accurate content andhighlight unique attributes so
(02:11):
that its AI filters andsummaries can help those stand
out better, and I think when weget to the hotel side of what to
do, that's very similar.
Ai needs accuracy and it needsthings that can be read in LLM
models.
The company introduced an AIitinerary builder on Expedia,
(02:35):
using AI to create day-by-dayitineraries based on interests
and favorites and saved bookingsand previous searches, and that
is having an effect of doublingthe attach rate of an activity
to a booking.
Flight deals is somethingExpedia launched in January.
It uses AI to flag fares whenthey go 20% below a predicted
price.
That's helping drive 15% higherconversion, more frequent
visits to Expedia and 50% higheropt-in for alerts to the users.
(02:57):
Otas or suppliers may gainfavor as AI-driven agents begin
booking travel autonomously, butI think this is getting into
the agentic part of AI Again.
That's future state, not today,but they're starting to tread
into that realm as well.
Matt Brown (03:14):
I wonder how aggressive the hotels themselves
are about this.
The bookingcoms and theExpedia's of the world sound
like they have dev teams andproduct teams working on this
actively right now, and I wonderif we were to peek under the
hood of Hilton and Marriott.
I wonder if they're taking itas seriously.
Jeff Borman (03:33):
Here's the short and sweet, though.
Right.
Hotel companies think ofthemselves as such.
Expedia and Booking do not.
They are tech companies, sotheir adoption of AI was prior
to our first conversation of AI.
Right, expedia was a spinoff ofMicrosoft I mean, that was 30
years ago now but at the core ofits company being, it's a tech
(03:55):
company based in Seattle, andbooking is not much different.
It is a tech first company thatfigured out 30 years ago how to
aggregate bookable contentacross 100,000 different hotels.
So this is not outside thecomfort zone for OTAs.
In fact, it's right in theirwheelhouse, whereas it forces
(04:16):
major hotel companies to bedifferent.
Matt Brown (04:19):
You know, fitting into their kind of personalities
.
Booking seems more focused onAI for the tech that drives
internal productivity,especially for software
engineers who use like codingassistance.
Booking is using the technologymore to improve its machine
learning models and make themmore agile, so I'm not saying
they said that they'reunderstanding traveler intent
(04:41):
with the aim of making it easierto transact.
You know you're featuringproperty benefits to show to a
specific traveler.
What do you think about otherintermediaries in this space?
Jeff Borman (04:54):
Cvent is a company that touches 200,000 planners,
sourcing 48 million room nightsand $18 billion last year.
They are making good use oftheir 200 staff that they've got
dedicated to AI by launchingCvent IQ, which is embedding AI
functionality through all theirevent management and sourcing
platforms.
So they're putting enhancements, including full 3D immersive
(05:16):
visualization of event setups atevery property, in their system
.
Ai generated event proposals.
Think of how much time thatsaves the planner.
Fast responses on the hotel sideby allowing AI to respond to
proposals or RFPs and as aresult of fast responses, you
know AI versus waiting for ahuman.
(05:36):
It's also allowing hotels thatengage that to trigger a top
responder icon, which willcompound more visibility to
those properties becauseplanners want their responses
fast.
So if the system works andorganizers promote app downloads
, it should improve thepersonalized summaries and make
attendees more likely to useCvent.
What I've heard called the IKEAeffect, which also suggests
that people place higher valueon the things they help create.
(05:59):
Well, if AI helps a plannerbetter create what they're
driving toward as an output intheir event again, that's going
to be a virtuous cycle for aC-Event and they're on their way
.
Matt Brown (06:12):
What about the traditional travel advisors?
Jeff Borman (06:15):
AI agents travel agents, if you will are starting
to handle everything fromcustomer service queries to
qualifying sales leads, and it'sreshaping the workforce.
The question is whether thosetools work for the human travel
advisor or instead of the traveladvisor.
A lot of that still has to playout.
Other cool applications thatwe're already seeing real-world
(06:38):
usage are AI tour guides,real-time translation, smart
glasses like Meta's Ray-Bansvery soon change how we explore.
I can see somebody creating aGPS-based system that acts as a
guide.
It'll see what the traveler'sseeing through their lens and
then narrate the history and thesignificance of what the
person's looking at so closelyto, as if you had a human guide
(07:02):
right there with you.
Matt Brown (07:04):
Most of the industry uses Kodi to manage return on
ad spend and digital spending,and Kodi is basically AI driven
at this point.
So, in many ways, a lot ofhotels are too, because they
depend on it so much.
Besides that, what are largehotel brands doing today with AI
(07:25):
?
Jeff Borman (07:26):
Outside of the paid media campaigns that Kodi is
mostly operating for, most seemfocused on AI to elevate guest
experience through customer data, CRM, audience management, how
to get more people in theloyalty program to monetize
later, and focusing on brandvoice.
I think when we were talkingabout the OTAs earlier, the
(07:50):
focus was a bit moretransactional how to drive
conversion through sites.
Hilton has explicitly said thatthis is about making a better
customer experience first.
I read quotes from Mitch Shaw.
Ataw, at noble hotel investmentcompany, believes that brands
will leverage ai to grownon-hotel accommodations, taking
the 200 million loyalty membersinside of honors or bonvoy and
(08:14):
getting them into brandedmulti-family units, senior
living and boat tours.
And and the marriott bonvoy appis already going this direction
.
It uses AI-powered searches topersonalize results for 140,000
home rental properties that areon its homes and villas platform
.
So I think there's somedirectional.
(08:35):
How do you leverage theaudience that they already have
for non-hotel stays?
Some of that's going on alreadyand I think that on the big
brand side of things, leveragingthe data that they have because
they have a treasure of dataand leveraging that to drive
better effectiveness of offersDon't place an expensive SEO
strategy that reaches the top ofthe page for a shopper who may
(08:58):
be so unlikely to convert thatit isn't worth even the cost of
an impression.
You know, a fraction of a penny.
What AI is being able to usethe loyalty program data for is
to get in front of people in away that creates very
cost-effective personalizedoffers to every guest.
I think that's early stages,but it is happening.
Matt Brown (09:21):
Del Ross, who is kind of a digital marketing
pioneer, in a recent article,gartner predicts that search
engine volume will drop 25% in2026.
Wow, due to AI, chatbots andother virtual agents.
I think that's true, becausewhen was the last time you got
on Google, everybody?
And what's the first thing yousee at the top there if you have
(09:41):
a question, it's an AIgenerated answer that is
attempting to kind of figure outwhat you're looking for 50% by
2028.
Uh-oh.
To mitigate this, I think it'scritical for businesses to
ensure that their websites arewell optimized.
Well, that's been the case forwebsites for 25 years, right,
but now it's like well, okay,what does that mean?
(10:02):
What do you think specificallyhoteliers should be doing to
kind of get ahead of what lookslike this tidal wave of
destruction that's coming forsearch?
Jeff Borman (10:14):
If we take this in categories, let's first say,
format your content for AIreadability.
Again, the question here you'reasking me is what to do today,
right now.
Add robust FAQ sections withconcise answers.
I think this is the number onething I hear is probably the
most common.
(10:34):
Have landing pages with nichefocus right.
Romantic weekend ocean suitewith fast Wi-Fi and great
workstation.
Be specific and be in thelanguage that you want it to be
presented.
Break up content with headers,bullets, tables and call-outs
that helps LLMs properlyreproduce the verbiage that you
want to have them present.
(10:55):
Use plain language, no jargon,no fluff.
Add micro-intense, pet-friendlyhotel with fireplace in Tahoe
right.
Matt Brown (11:06):
I'm fascinated by the idea that the future of
advertising is.
Being honest in the descriptionof what you're advertising
Location-rich descriptions right.
Totally.
Jeff Borman (11:20):
Here's a really good example.
Many brand sites are formattedin a way where it says pets and
then it'll say colon yes or no.
The users on the other end arejust putting yes, no, or $25 fee
and just like a dollar sign,100.
That is confusing.
The proper response that AI istrying to give.
(11:41):
What you do need now is notpets, yes, or pets and a price.
It's pets are welcome and wehave a welcome pet amenity $100
fee per animal under, you know,100 pounds, Like the real
language.
Answer is what needs to get inthere, Not just the fact that
it's a hundred bucks to haveyour pet 10,000%.
Matt Brown (12:03):
In fact, the biggest search that I do when I travel
with our dog, tilda, is I lookfor pet friendly.
It needs to be pretty high upthere, because if it's not, if
I'm not getting immediately theanswer that I need, I move on.
Jeff Borman (12:18):
Another thing I was recently reading is optimize
the content to be skimmable byAI, and the specific action from
that is to write in aconclusion first style.
This is what you need to know,and then everything else else.
A lot of our marketing copytoday does the exact opposite.
Lots of fluffy words meant forSEO and keyword optimization
(12:40):
ultimately may be getting to apoint of and don't forget to
stay at our hotel In writingwith a conclusion first style.
Draft your content with a fearof TLDR, the too long didn't
read.
Ai does not want paragraphs.
It wants really short, succinct.
Give me the answer.
Continuing down the line ofcontent, Matt, enable integrated
(13:03):
AI chat like Hi Jiffy, Book MeBob, Ask Sweet onto your website
.
Create comparison content likethis room is best for families,
this room is best for romanticgetaways.
Leverage third-party sites tofeed content into AI searches.
So submit the most thoroughlistings to Google Travel, Bing
(13:27):
Travel, Kayak, TripAdvisor.
Submit media feeds to contentaggregators like TripAdvisor and
Hopper and OTAs.
And use Google Business ProfileQ&A section to its absolute
fullest to populate the contents.
This is where AIs are going toget the information you want
them to respond to your shopperswith.
Matt Brown (13:48):
Wow, sounds easy.
I'm sure they're all on this aswe speak, and it's all stuff
that humans have to do.
Good news, everybody we stillhave to feed the robots material
in order for them to do all thefancy things that we want them
to do in the future.
Jeff Borman (14:05):
The points we just went through are but you have to
feed it in a way that the robotcan consume it For sure.
Matt Brown (14:11):
Roughly 30 to 40% of all the information that LLM's
process comes from you guessedit Wikipedia.
You know this is a move that islikely to save time and money
in the race for AI supremacy,and that move is that AI tools
are buying data directly fromproviders to fill data gaps.
So you know, like Google'songoing relationship with Reddit
(14:35):
, or OpenAI's partnership withFoursquare for location data,
bookingcom partnering withOpenAI for personalized travel
recommendations.
Jeff, is there anything?
What else am I missing here?
Those are kind of the big ones.
Jeff Borman (14:49):
I think the second section here, then, would be
give careful consideration tostructured content and metadata.
The first thing we talked aboutwas the natural verbiage that
you use.
The second, then, is thingslike number one schema.
It helps LLMs better understandyour content.
Leverage structured data onpages so that machines can read
(15:12):
them well.
Validating schema usingGoogle's rich results test.
Ensure your photos and videoshave descriptive alt text and
file names.
Geotag every image and mediawith a GPS location in the
metadata.
Place captions on all videosand optimize it for silent
viewing.
Host virtual tours or 360content with descriptive
(15:36):
metadata.
Does the image of your poolhave a metadata description?
Rooftop infinity pool at HotelX?
This is the stuff that AIs willpick up on and help them give
the results you're trying togive to shoppers.
Matt Brown (15:51):
It's going to be a ton of grunt work, but you have
to do it.
Actually, it won't be that bad.
It's bad if you have a hugesite.
What you need is an AI topopulate all this data for you,
so you don't have to go in andtag everything yourself.
So I'd like to.
Maybe we should invest in thatcompany.
You can also leverage sites.
Jeff, you found this and I'dnever heard of this either.
(16:13):
It's called Schema MarkupValidator, to test the content
you have.
So here's a little rainbow.
The more you know segment hereSchema Markup Validator.
This is not an ad.
It'll test out what you got tosee how you stack up.
It turns out that 98% of AItraffic is sent by three
chatbots, with chat GPTaccounting for 50% alone.
(16:36):
That is a lot of power andknowledge coming from one place,
right when you're creatingcontent.
Jeff Borman (16:44):
Authority has become once again a very
significant part of search, ifyou want to say that significant
part of search if you want tosay that.
So I think, matt.
The third section to what canhotel teams and commercial
leaders actually do today?
Focus on what earns highauthority in the AI mind, if you
will.
So earn backlinks from blogsand YouTube creators and Reddit
(17:08):
threads.
Brand mentions, ll.
They look more LLMs, look tomore human ways to understand
authority.
So making mentions or beingmentioned by other sources is
again back to extreme valuable.
This renews the relevance ofbacklinking, which kind of faded
away.
It was big in the early days ofSEO.
(17:29):
It's really back.
It's monitored.
Brand mentions and travelforums and AI generated
summaries with tools like brand24.
Don't just encourage guests topost good reviews on Google or
TripAdvisor, but lead them tomention the specific experiences
or attributes of the hotel,like loved the hotel.
That's not going to get youanywhere.
(17:50):
Loved the service at the pool,had a wonderful day, the
margaritas were perfect, rightLike that will then get you more
credibility and authority.
Ask influencers if you'reworking with them to describe
your hotel naturally, in anatural human voice or
conversational tone.
Again, influencers, get rid ofyour fluff.
Matt Brown (18:12):
That's going to be a hard one, I think.
Can you influence the?
Jeff Borman (18:17):
influencer.
Emphasize local partnerships,local events, local businesses,
and you will again earn higherauthority by being affiliated
with them.
Repurpose hotel blogs intoshort, structured responses that
AI can index.
Embed at-a-glance widgets onyour site a weather widget,
(18:37):
walkability map, distance to keyattractions and connecting to,
like the backlinks again, othersites.
That will give credibility toyour statement.
Matt Brown (18:46):
Well, this is a lot of work to do, and I for one
can't wait to get into it.
I can't wait for other peopleto do it.
Back to the main question,though.
I mean, on top of all this, isthere anything else that hotel
commercial teams should be doing?
You've lived in that world fora long time and so you know the
(19:07):
day-to-day of what those teamsare like.
So what, realistically, shouldbe kind of their best practices?
Jeff Borman (19:17):
You know, I think outside of the real hotel
website stuff that we've justbeen talking about, kind of a
loose hodgepodge of some otherbest practices going on right
now.
Track how your hotel appears inAI-generated answers.
What are users actually seeingabout your hotel?
You can use perplexity, sge,chat, gpt.
Second, if you can implementpredictive text or
(19:40):
auto-suggestions in your ownsearch filter UX on your site,
the more you can lead a shopperto what they want or what you
think they'll want, the better.
The third thing that comes tomind using AIs like Claude that
excel at analysis or repetitivetasks, anything that involves
analyzing the same data sets,weekly, monthly, etc.
(20:02):
Star reports demand 360,.
Perplexity is really good forthat, so you can relieve
yourself and find theefficiencies that you're looking
for.
Perplexity is really good forthat, so you can relieve
yourself and find theefficiencies that you're looking
for.
You can take data from Nolan,costar or Salesforce and
(20:23):
regularly feed that intoperplexity and provide your
sales teams with sales leads.
Finally, spidering Don't blockthe bots, matt.
If you do, you will have noability to appear in the answers
that they generate.
If you use a CDN contentdelivery network, it's a very
good idea to confirm that theyaren't blocking AI bots.
To test this out, there's acompany called CloudFair that
has a useful tool called AIAudit and it'll show how and
(20:43):
when different bots are hittingyour site.
There's a service calledScrunch.
They can share how a company isappearing across various AI
platform.
Bridgeedge and SEMrush'sOtterly product are providing
similar reporting on GEOgenerative engine optimization,
which is a variance of SEOreporting analytics.
(21:03):
So don't block the bots.
Know who's searching you.
Know the results that are beingprovided back to them.
It's a really good startingpoint to seeing how your
customers are seeing you, Ithink.
Finally, refresh the content.
Often have timestamps on it andaccuracy In all caps, matt.
Accuracy.
(21:23):
That's what you want your hotelguests to get.
The right response when theysay, does my hotel have a pool?
And there's a image of a poolfrom 10 years ago, but you have
since filled it in with concreteand turned it into a meeting
room, it will turn that imageinto a word that says here's the
pool at your hotel when youhaven't had one in a decade.
Be real careful about thatstuff.
(21:44):
You've got to be accurate.
Matt Brown (21:45):
You better watch out , man, because you're going to
get.
Look at all the homework here.
You're going to start gettingasked to be the AI expert about
hotels on panels.
So get ready, Get ready forthat to come down your email
chute.
Jeff Borman (21:59):
All right, Listen.
Any interested party can simplyreplay this podcast.
Matt, I have no mysteryquestion for you today.
Matt Brown (22:08):
No right, I don't have a mystery question for you.
Let's ask AI a mystery question.
Sure, hold on, give me onesecond here.
So what I'm putting in here,I'm not going to share which one
I'm putting it in.
Give me a mystery questionabout my travel likes or
dislikes.
Here's a mystery question tospark some self-discovery.
(22:29):
Thanks, chatbot, chatgbt,claude Quote if someone followed
the breadcrumbs of yourfavorite travel destinations,
what secret pattern or hiddencraving would they uncover?
Thrill-seeking they use an emdash, of course.
Thrill-seeking, solitude,indulgence or escape Dash of
(22:51):
course, thrill, seeking solitude, indulgence or escape.
Jeff Borman (22:52):
I think the pattern if you took my whole life's
travels, the pattern you'd findis that I'm going further and
further off the grid of populardestinations and starting to
actually loop back in to placesI've been but want to explore
more deeply.
I've actually realized in myown travel pattern that I'm
(23:16):
going to places now there's areason I haven't been there and
I'm going back and saying youknow, italy is actually so
wonderful and has so much moreto offer.
I want to do more of that thanfind the most remote place, the
most remote island in the SouthPacific, just because I'm
feeling like an explorer.
I'm actually going back to theplaces and getting deeper into
(23:39):
them, instead of just moredifferent places.
Matt Brown (23:42):
That's a good answer .
If I had to choose from herethrill-seeking, solitude,
indulgence or escape, I'dprobably say a mix of solitude
and escape.
But my real answer would alsoinclude community.
Strangely, I know it's weird tohave solitude and community in
the same thing, but Not if thevoices in your head are as
(24:04):
active as mine.
Sure, tell me about it, get inline.
See, this is going to be thefuture.
It's the future of future.
Travel right here, solitude,indulgence, escape and thrill
seeking, and community andvoices in your head.
I'm Matt Brown.
That person you can't see overthere is Jeff Borman.
We host the show together and Ithink, jeff, I think we do a
great job of hosting it.
It's incredible.
We've done this for almost 80episodes.
As we near 100, we're going tohave to do something special.
Almost 80 episodes, as we near100, we're going to have to do
(00:29):
something special.
Today we are continuing adiscussion about the state of AI
.
I know it's everybody'sfavorite topic, and for good
reason, but we're going to giveit a little bit more of a spin
related to the exponentialgrowth rates within travel and
why people are using it fortravel.
We're in that phase right nowwhich reminds me a lot of the
late 90s of everybody wants tocome over like the soothsayer
(00:51):
but they're not quite surewhat's gonna happen, but they
still wanna kind of projectauthority.
If there's one thing Jeff and Ido really well, it's not
project authority, so you don'thave to have that worry with us.
Jeff Borman (01:02):
Or even knowledge, really.
Matt Brown (01:03):
No, no, no knowledge .
How, so you don't have to havethat worry with us?
Or even knowledge, really, no,no, no knowledge.
How can the world of people newto engaging in AI approach this
?
Because it's, all, I think, alittle daunting.
Chatgpt is not so dauntingbecause people are still using
it.
Most people who don't knowanything about AI are using
they're gingerly using somethinglike ChatGPT as essentially
just a glorified search engine.
But let's start with what theOTAs are doing today.
Jeff Borman (01:29):
Expedia held its Explore conference in May and
shared some insights into thereal-world uses they have today
with AI-powered features focusedon really driving higher
engagement and conversion.
They recently launchedautomated AI filters, a
functionality that's driving 35%conversion, lift and lower
(01:51):
cancellation rates, in additionto the existing AI-generated
property summaries andAI-powered property Q&A, which
is elevating the content theydisplay and that's driving 2X
conversion.
Expedia guides its suppliers sohotel, community or air or car
to ensure accurate content andhighlight unique attributes so
(02:11):
that its AI filters andsummaries can help those stand
out better, and I think when weget to the hotel side of what to
do, that's very similar.
Ai needs accuracy and it needsthings that can be read in LLM
models.
The company introduced an AIitinerary builder on Expedia,
(02:35):
using AI to create day-by-dayitineraries based on interests
and favorites and saved bookingsand previous searches, and that
is having an effect of doublingthe attach rate of an activity
to a booking.
Flight deals is somethingExpedia launched in January.
It uses AI to flag fares whenthey go 20% below a predicted
price.
That's helping drive 15% higherconversion, more frequent
visits to Expedia and 50% higheropt-in for alerts to the users.
(02:57):
Otas or suppliers may gainfavor as AI-driven agents begin
booking travel autonomously, butI think this is getting into
the agentic part of AI Again.
That's future state, not today,but they're starting to tread
into that realm as well.
Matt Brown (03:14):
I wonder how aggressive the hotels themselves
are about this.
The bookingcoms and theExpedia's of the world sound
like they have dev teams andproduct teams working on this
actively right now, and I wonderif we were to peek under the
hood of Hilton and Marriott.
I wonder if they're taking itas seriously.
Jeff Borman (03:33):
Here's the short and sweet, though.
Right.
Hotel companies think ofthemselves as such.
Expedia and Booking do not.
They are tech companies, sotheir adoption of AI was prior
to our first conversation of AI.
Right, expedia was a spinoff ofMicrosoft I mean, that was 30
years ago now but at the core ofits company being, it's a tech
(03:55):
company based in Seattle, andbooking is not much different.
It is a tech first company thatfigured out 30 years ago how to
aggregate bookable contentacross 100,000 different hotels.
So this is not outside thecomfort zone for OTAs.
In fact, it's right in theirwheelhouse, whereas it forces
(04:16):
major hotel companies to bedifferent.
Matt Brown (04:19):
You know, fitting into their kind of personalities
.
Booking seems more focused onAI for the tech that drives
internal productivity,especially for software
engineers who use like codingassistance.
Booking is using the technologymore to improve its machine
learning models and make themmore agile, so I'm not saying
they said that they'reunderstanding traveler intent
(04:41):
with the aim of making it easierto transact.
You know you're featuringproperty benefits to show to a
specific traveler.
What do you think about otherintermediaries in this space?
Jeff Borman (04:54):
Cvent is a company that touches 200,000 planners,
sourcing 48 million room nightsand $18 billion last year.
They are making good use oftheir 200 staff that they've got
dedicated to AI by launchingCvent IQ, which is embedding AI
functionality through all theirevent management and sourcing
platforms.
So they're putting enhancements, including full 3D immersive
(05:16):
visualization of event setups atevery property, in their system
.
Ai generated event proposals.
Think of how much time thatsaves the planner.
Fast responses on the hotel sideby allowing AI to respond to
proposals or RFPs and as aresult of fast responses, you
know AI versus waiting for ahuman.
(05:36):
It's also allowing hotels thatengage that to trigger a top
responder icon, which willcompound more visibility to
those properties becauseplanners want their responses
fast.
So if the system works andorganizers promote app downloads
, it should improve thepersonalized summaries and make
attendees more likely to useCvent.
What I've heard called the IKEAeffect, which also suggests
that people place higher valueon the things they help create.
(05:59):
Well, if AI helps a plannerbetter create what they're
driving toward as an output intheir event again, that's going
to be a virtuous cycle for aC-Event and they're on their way
.
Matt Brown (06:12):
What about the traditional travel advisors?
Jeff Borman (06:15):
AI agents travel agents, if you will are starting
to handle everything fromcustomer service queries to
qualifying sales leads, and it'sreshaping the workforce.
The question is whether thosetools work for the human travel
advisor or instead of the traveladvisor.
A lot of that still has to playout.
Other cool applications thatwe're already seeing real-world
(06:38):
usage are AI tour guides,real-time translation, smart
glasses like Meta's Ray-Bansvery soon change how we explore.
I can see somebody creating aGPS-based system that acts as a
guide.
It'll see what the traveler'sseeing through their lens and
then narrate the history and thesignificance of what the
person's looking at so closelyto, as if you had a human guide
(07:02):
right there with you.
Matt Brown (07:04):
Most of the industry uses Kodi to manage return on
ad spend and digital spending,and Kodi is basically AI driven
at this point.
So, in many ways, a lot ofhotels are too, because they
depend on it so much.
Besides that, what are largehotel brands doing today with AI
(07:25):
?
Jeff Borman (07:26):
Outside of the paid media campaigns that Kodi is
mostly operating for, most seemfocused on AI to elevate guest
experience through customer data, CRM, audience management, how
to get more people in theloyalty program to monetize
later, and focusing on brandvoice.
I think when we were talkingabout the OTAs earlier, the
(07:50):
focus was a bit moretransactional how to drive
conversion through sites.
Hilton has explicitly said thatthis is about making a better
customer experience first.
I read quotes from Mitch Shaw.
Ataw, at noble hotel investmentcompany, believes that brands
will leverage ai to grownon-hotel accommodations, taking
the 200 million loyalty membersinside of honors or bonvoy and
(08:14):
getting them into brandedmulti-family units, senior
living and boat tours.
And and the marriott bonvoy appis already going this direction
.
It uses AI-powered searches topersonalize results for 140,000
home rental properties that areon its homes and villas platform
.
So I think there's somedirectional.
(08:35):
How do you leverage theaudience that they already have
for non-hotel stays?
Some of that's going on alreadyand I think that on the big
brand side of things, leveragingthe data that they have because
they have a treasure of dataand leveraging that to drive
better effectiveness of offersDon't place an expensive SEO
strategy that reaches the top ofthe page for a shopper who may
(08:58):
be so unlikely to convert thatit isn't worth even the cost of
an impression.
You know, a fraction of a penny.
What AI is being able to usethe loyalty program data for is
to get in front of people in away that creates very
cost-effective personalizedoffers to every guest.
I think that's early stages,but it is happening.
Matt Brown (09:21):
Del Ross, who is kind of a digital marketing
pioneer, in a recent article,gartner predicts that search
engine volume will drop 25% in2026.
Wow, due to AI, chatbots andother virtual agents.
I think that's true, becausewhen was the last time you got
on Google, everybody?
And what's the first thing yousee at the top there if you have
(09:41):
a question, it's an AIgenerated answer that is
attempting to kind of figure outwhat you're looking for 50% by
2028.
Uh-oh.
To mitigate this, I think it'scritical for businesses to
ensure that their websites arewell optimized.
Well, that's been the case forwebsites for 25 years, right,
but now it's like well, okay,what does that mean?
(10:02):
What do you think specificallyhoteliers should be doing to
kind of get ahead of what lookslike this tidal wave of
destruction that's coming forsearch?
Jeff Borman (10:14):
If we take this in categories, let's first say,
format your content for AIreadability.
Again, the question here you'reasking me is what to do today,
right now.
Add robust FAQ sections withconcise answers.
I think this is the number onething I hear is probably the
most common.
(10:34):
Have landing pages with nichefocus right.
Romantic weekend ocean suitewith fast Wi-Fi and great
workstation.
Be specific and be in thelanguage that you want it to be
presented.
Break up content with headers,bullets, tables and call-outs
that helps LLMs properlyreproduce the verbiage that you
want to have them present.
(10:55):
Use plain language, no jargon,no fluff.
Add micro-intense, pet-friendlyhotel with fireplace in Tahoe
right.
Matt Brown (11:06):
I'm fascinated by the idea that the future of
advertising is.
Being honest in the descriptionof what you're advertising
Location-rich descriptions right.
Totally.
Jeff Borman (11:20):
Here's a really good example.
Many brand sites are formattedin a way where it says pets and
then it'll say colon yes or no.
The users on the other end arejust putting yes, no, or $25 fee
and just like a dollar sign,100.
That is confusing.
The proper response that AI istrying to give.
(11:41):
What you do need now is notpets, yes, or pets and a price.
It's pets are welcome and wehave a welcome pet amenity $100
fee per animal under, you know,100 pounds, Like the real
language.
Answer is what needs to get inthere, Not just the fact that
it's a hundred bucks to haveyour pet 10,000%.
Matt Brown (12:03):
In fact, the biggest search that I do when I travel
with our dog, tilda, is I lookfor pet friendly.
It needs to be pretty high upthere, because if it's not, if
I'm not getting immediately theanswer that I need, I move on.
Jeff Borman (12:18):
Another thing I was recently reading is optimize
the content to be skimmable byAI, and the specific action from
that is to write in aconclusion first style.
This is what you need to know,and then everything else else.
A lot of our marketing copytoday does the exact opposite.
Lots of fluffy words meant forSEO and keyword optimization
(12:40):
ultimately may be getting to apoint of and don't forget to
stay at our hotel In writingwith a conclusion first style.
Draft your content with a fearof TLDR, the too long didn't
read.
Ai does not want paragraphs.
It wants really short, succinct.
Give me the answer.
Continuing down the line ofcontent, Matt, enable integrated
(13:03):
AI chat like Hi Jiffy, Book MeBob, Ask Sweet onto your website
.
Create comparison content likethis room is best for families,
this room is best for romanticgetaways.
Leverage third-party sites tofeed content into AI searches.
So submit the most thoroughlistings to Google Travel, Bing
(13:27):
Travel, Kayak, TripAdvisor.
Submit media feeds to contentaggregators like TripAdvisor and
Hopper and OTAs.
And use Google Business ProfileQ&A section to its absolute
fullest to populate the contents.
This is where AIs are going toget the information you want
them to respond to your shopperswith.
Matt Brown (13:48):
Wow, sounds easy.
I'm sure they're all on this aswe speak, and it's all stuff
that humans have to do.
Good news, everybody we stillhave to feed the robots material
in order for them to do all thefancy things that we want them
to do in the future.
Jeff Borman (14:05):
The points we just went through are but you have to
feed it in a way that the robotcan consume it For sure.
Matt Brown (14:11):
Roughly 30 to 40% of all the information that LLM's
process comes from you guessedit Wikipedia.
You know this is a move that islikely to save time and money
in the race for AI supremacy,and that move is that AI tools
are buying data directly fromproviders to fill data gaps.
So you know, like Google'songoing relationship with Reddit
(14:35):
, or OpenAI's partnership withFoursquare for location data,
bookingcom partnering withOpenAI for personalized travel
recommendations.
Jeff, is there anything?
What else am I missing here?
Those are kind of the big ones.
Jeff Borman (14:49):
I think the second section here, then, would be
give careful consideration tostructured content and metadata.
The first thing we talked aboutwas the natural verbiage that
you use.
The second, then, is thingslike number one schema.
It helps LLMs better understandyour content.
Leverage structured data onpages so that machines can read
(15:12):
them well.
Validating schema usingGoogle's rich results test.
Ensure your photos and videoshave descriptive alt text and
file names.
Geotag every image and mediawith a GPS location in the
metadata.
Place captions on all videosand optimize it for silent
viewing.
Host virtual tours or 360content with descriptive
(15:36):
metadata.
Does the image of your poolhave a metadata description?
Rooftop infinity pool at HotelX?
This is the stuff that AIs willpick up on and help them give
the results you're trying togive to shoppers.
Matt Brown (15:51):
It's going to be a ton of grunt work, but you have
to do it.
Actually, it won't be that bad.
It's bad if you have a hugesite.
What you need is an AI topopulate all this data for you,
so you don't have to go in andtag everything yourself.
So I'd like to.
Maybe we should invest in thatcompany.
You can also leverage sites.
Jeff, you found this and I'dnever heard of this either.
(16:13):
It's called Schema MarkupValidator, to test the content
you have.
So here's a little rainbow.
The more you know segment hereSchema Markup Validator.
This is not an ad.
It'll test out what you got tosee how you stack up.
It turns out that 98% of AItraffic is sent by three
chatbots, with chat GPTaccounting for 50% alone.
(16:36):
That is a lot of power andknowledge coming from one place,
right when you're creatingcontent.
Jeff Borman (16:44):
Authority has become once again a very
significant part of search, ifyou want to say that significant
part of search if you want tosay that.
So I think, matt.
The third section to what canhotel teams and commercial
leaders actually do today?
Focus on what earns highauthority in the AI mind, if you
will.
So earn backlinks from blogsand YouTube creators and Reddit
(17:08):
threads.
Brand mentions, ll.
They look more LLMs, look tomore human ways to understand
authority.
So making mentions or beingmentioned by other sources is
again back to extreme valuable.
This renews the relevance ofbacklinking, which kind of faded
away.
It was big in the early days ofSEO.
(17:29):
It's really back.
It's monitored.
Brand mentions and travelforums and AI generated
summaries with tools like brand24.
Don't just encourage guests topost good reviews on Google or
TripAdvisor, but lead them tomention the specific experiences
or attributes of the hotel,like loved the hotel.
That's not going to get youanywhere.
(17:50):
Loved the service at the pool,had a wonderful day, the
margaritas were perfect, rightLike that will then get you more
credibility and authority.
Ask influencers if you'reworking with them to describe
your hotel naturally, in anatural human voice or
conversational tone.
Again, influencers, get rid ofyour fluff.
Matt Brown (18:12):
That's going to be a hard one, I think.
Can you influence the?
Jeff Borman (18:17):
influencer.
Emphasize local partnerships,local events, local businesses,
and you will again earn higherauthority by being affiliated
with them.
Repurpose hotel blogs intoshort, structured responses that
AI can index.
Embed at-a-glance widgets onyour site a weather widget,
(18:37):
walkability map, distance to keyattractions and connecting to,
like the backlinks again, othersites.
That will give credibility toyour statement.
Matt Brown (18:46):
Well, this is a lot of work to do, and I for one
can't wait to get into it.
I can't wait for other peopleto do it.
Back to the main question,though.
I mean, on top of all this, isthere anything else that hotel
commercial teams should be doing?
You've lived in that world fora long time and so you know the
(19:07):
day-to-day of what those teamsare like.
So what, realistically, shouldbe kind of their best practices?
Jeff Borman (19:17):
You know, I think outside of the real hotel
website stuff that we've justbeen talking about, kind of a
loose hodgepodge of some otherbest practices going on right
now.
Track how your hotel appears inAI-generated answers.
What are users actually seeingabout your hotel?
You can use perplexity, sge,chat, gpt.
Second, if you can implementpredictive text or
(19:40):
auto-suggestions in your ownsearch filter UX on your site,
the more you can lead a shopperto what they want or what you
think they'll want, the better.
The third thing that comes tomind using AIs like Claude that
excel at analysis or repetitivetasks, anything that involves
analyzing the same data sets,weekly, monthly, etc.
(20:02):
Star reports demand 360,.
Perplexity is really good forthat, so you can relieve
yourself and find theefficiencies that you're looking
for.
Perplexity is really good forthat, so you can relieve
yourself and find theefficiencies that you're looking
for.
You can take data from Nolan,costar or Salesforce and
(20:23):
regularly feed that intoperplexity and provide your
sales teams with sales leads.
Finally, spidering Don't blockthe bots, matt.
If you do, you will have noability to appear in the answers
that they generate.
If you use a CDN contentdelivery network, it's a very
good idea to confirm that theyaren't blocking AI bots.
To test this out, there's acompany called CloudFair that
has a useful tool called AIAudit and it'll show how and
(20:43):
when different bots are hittingyour site.
There's a service calledScrunch.
They can share how a company isappearing across various AI
platform.
Bridgeedge and SEMrush'sOtterly product are providing
similar reporting on GEOgenerative engine optimization,
which is a variance of SEOreporting analytics.
(21:03):
So don't block the bots.
Know who's searching you.
Know the results that are beingprovided back to them.
It's a really good startingpoint to seeing how your
customers are seeing you, Ithink.
Finally, refresh the content.
Often have timestamps on it andaccuracy In all caps, matt.
Accuracy.
(21:23):
That's what you want your hotelguests to get.
The right response when theysay, does my hotel have a pool?
And there's a image of a poolfrom 10 years ago, but you have
since filled it in with concreteand turned it into a meeting
room, it will turn that imageinto a word that says here's the
pool at your hotel when youhaven't had one in a decade.
Be real careful about thatstuff.
(21:44):
You've got to be accurate.
Matt Brown (21:45):
You better watch out , man, because you're going to
get.
Look at all the homework here.
You're going to start gettingasked to be the AI expert about
hotels on panels.
So get ready, Get ready forthat to come down your email
chute.
Jeff Borman (21:59):
All right, Listen.
Any interested party can simplyreplay this podcast.
Matt, I have no mysteryquestion for you today.
Matt Brown (22:08):
No right, I don't have a mystery question for you.
Let's ask AI a mystery question.
Sure, hold on, give me onesecond here.
So what I'm putting in here,I'm not going to share which one
I'm putting it in.
Give me a mystery questionabout my travel likes or
dislikes.
Here's a mystery question tospark some self-discovery.
(22:29):
Thanks, chatbot, chatgbt,claude Quote if someone followed
the breadcrumbs of yourfavorite travel destinations,
what secret pattern or hiddencraving would they uncover?
Thrill-seeking they use an emdash, of course.
Thrill-seeking, solitude,indulgence or escape Dash of
(22:51):
course, thrill, seeking solitude, indulgence or escape.
Jeff Borman (22:52):
I think the pattern if you took my whole life's
travels, the pattern you'd findis that I'm going further and
further off the grid of populardestinations and starting to
actually loop back in to placesI've been but want to explore
more deeply.
I've actually realized in myown travel pattern that I'm
(23:16):
going to places now there's areason I haven't been there and
I'm going back and saying youknow, italy is actually so
wonderful and has so much moreto offer.
I want to do more of that thanfind the most remote place, the
most remote island in the SouthPacific, just because I'm
feeling like an explorer.
I'm actually going back to theplaces and getting deeper into
(23:39):
them, instead of just moredifferent places.
Matt Brown (23:42):
That's a good answer .
If I had to choose from herethrill-seeking, solitude,
indulgence or escape, I'dprobably say a mix of solitude
and escape.
But my real answer would alsoinclude community.
Strangely, I know it's weird tohave solitude and community in
the same thing, but Not if thevoices in your head are as
(24:04):
active as mine.
Sure, tell me about it, get inline.
See, this is going to be thefuture.
It's the future of future.
Travel right here, solitude,indulgence, escape and thrill
seeking, and community andvoices in your head.
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