The Impact of AI on Destination Marketing featuring Visit California

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In this second episode - part of a 3-part mini-series with Mindtrip exploring how AI is transforming destination marketing - we sit down with Lynn Carpenter, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Visit California, to unpack how a how a $157.3B tourism economy is being reimagined through AI, data, and human storytelling. Lynn shares why engagement now matters more than traffic, taking us from the dot-com era to today’s AI surge and revealing how her team built an advanced content platform designed for both humans and machines. Think California industry led RAG architecture, a massive digital content library, and editorial processes that add what the web can’t know yet: local nuance, future packages, and timely insights.

The results are eye-opening. Visit California’s new road trip hub offered three planning paths - quiz, human-curated, and AI-assisted - and the AI option has now surpassed curated links in click-throughs. Visitors entering via AI spend an average of nine minutes on site, a strong signal of intent for a property designed to hand off to California travel partners for booking. Lynn breaks down how international offices inform market strategy, how multilingual search became a hidden growth lever, and how her team draws a direct line from owned content to more than a billion dollars in incremental tourism impact. For more information, please visit industry.visitcalifornia.com.

Join us next week for the final episode in this mini-series, featuring Discover Puerto Rico CMO Storm Tussey and Mindtrip CMO Michelle Denogean, as we explore what’s next for destination marketing in the age of AI.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:03):
I think that you can create all the great messages
you want that resonate and thatare brilliant strategy.
But if you cannot connect themto the right people at the right
time, then they're falling ondeaf ears.

SPEAKER_00 (00:21):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Travel Trends.
This is your host, DanChristian, and we're about to
begin part two of our specialthree-part series on how AI is
impacting destination marketing,which is brought to us in
partnership with our friendsover at Mindtrip, who believe
travel is at its best when yourlocal expertise meets the power
of AI.

(00:42):
Our first episode last weekfeatured Jeanette Roush, the
chief AI officer at Brand USA.
And the response as expected wasincredible.
She is certainly one of thesharpest minds in this space.
And we have two more amazingspeakers lined up for you.
Next week, we'll wrap up theseries with Storm Tussie, the
CMO for Discover Puerto Rico.
And in today's episode, we'reheaded to California to speak to

(01:05):
Lynn Carpenter, the Senior VicePresident of Marketing for Visit
California.
Now, California holds a veryspecial place in my heart
because I spent two years livingand exploring there.
So I was really excited to sitdown and have this conversation
with Lynn to understand exactlyhow Visit California works,
their mandate, their objectives,and how they market one of the

(01:28):
most beautiful places in theworld.
And ultimately how they definesuccess in an industry that is
evolving so rapidly.
She was such an ideal person tospeak to because Lynn truly gets
this space.
Her career spans back to thedot-com era, like myself, but in
California, really where it allstarted.
And she has firsthand experiencewith these major technological

(01:51):
shifts.
So she's not only able to beable to speak from that
experience, but she has a uniqueconnection with Mind Trip
because she was very early intoworking with their team, as
you'll hear in our conversationtoday, because they are based
right there in California.
So let's jump right in and bringLynn into the conversation to
talk about how the world ofdestination marketing

(02:12):
organizations are having torapidly evolve in the realm of
AI.
Welcome, Lynn.
It's so great to have you withus.
Thanks so much for joining us onour special series.

SPEAKER_01 (02:21):
Great to be here.
I'm so excited about thisconversation.

SPEAKER_00 (02:24):
Me too, because I love California.
I was so excited for you to be apart of this series that we've
been doing with Mind Trip on howDMOs or tourism boards are being
impacted by AI.
And someone like yourself,having just heard that
introduction, most of ourlisteners understanding that
you've been at Visit Californiafor 20 years, you've got such a
deep understanding of thisindustry, and you happen to live

(02:45):
in one of the most beautifulplaces in the world.
Tell us a little bit about howyou got into this because I know
you have a technologybackground, but what brought you
into tourism and ultimatelyworking at a DMO like Visit
California?

SPEAKER_01 (02:58):
Yeah, I have been so lucky in my career and the
people I've met.
It has been an incrediblejourney.
And it was, it's been fun toreflect on that.
I think it's going to sound likeI'm marketing California right
now because I'm born and raisedin the East Coast.
Um, my father was an engineer,my mother was an HR

(03:19):
professional.
It kind of set me up perfectlyfor sort of that left-right
brain marriage uh that is rethat is marketing and that is
technology marketing inparticular.
I um I actually graduated uhfrom college, and my first job
was in uh the first startup inSilicon Valley called Go.

(03:42):
And um, and I was able to meet alot of people from Claris and
from Apple and those executives,and I was young and I didn't
even know I was in technology.
I thought I was changing theworld by communicating, I was in
comps, about pen-based computingarchitecture and how we would
never have to use keyboardsagain.

(04:03):
And I became like an advocatefor this idea of the interface
between humans and technology.
And what's weird is it hasn'tchanged.
Like those topics are threadedthrough my entire career.
It's like social culturalanthropology.
But I went uh from there to um acompany called Netscape and got

(04:27):
to participate in the 90s uh atthe birth of the internet, and
that was a front row seat andincredible.
Um, and I again, if you hadtried to plan it, it wouldn't
have happened.
So these things just happen.
Um, and it was an incredible uhopportunity to be around
world-class people thinkingabout problems that hadn't been

(04:50):
solved yet.

SPEAKER_00 (04:50):
Yeah.
It's really interesting, andthis is where as we're having a
conversation about destinationmarketing and 2026 and the use
of AI, it's really interestingto get your background given
that it is technology.
And actually, when you mentionedthat, uh Go go and go to.com was
one of the, you know, it was thesearch engine that most people
have forgotten about.
But it actually it it I rememberwhen it first launched because

(05:12):
it was, you know, they had thebusiness model of being able to
buy keywords and and have a costper click model.
And I was like, this is amazing.
That was like, you know,obviously Google embraced that
and and the rest is history, butuh but those were those early
exciting days.
And I feel like we're in asimilar stage with with AI.
And uh I'm sure you feel like,especially being in California,

(05:34):
is there a similar vibe, do youthink, to what's happening today
with AI and travel?
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (05:40):
Yeah, I would I would have described the uh late
90s as kind of a gold rock rushera in Silicon Valley.
Um, and I'm not I I was in thisfor people, and I was in this
for um changing the world.
Like it was about sort of thesocial evolution that stems from

(06:01):
technology.
Um, but it was amazing to see itcome to life, and it was an
honor to be there for it.
And what's interesting now ishere we are so much later.
I don't want to scare anyone,and I'm not comparing these
things, but history does repeatitself.
Um, and there are so manylessons from those early days

(06:22):
that I see, you know, the hypecycle, the pundits.
And so it's not so surprising tome.
I'm not really looking in acrystal ball, I'm kind of
looking in my resume to say, oh,this is gonna happen next.
Yeah.
Uh and that's been helpful.

SPEAKER_00 (06:39):
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong.
And I and what I mean by that isanytime something new comes on
uh the scene, it's human natureto um have it divide people into
this is good, this is bad.
Um and so one of the things thatI think is really important, and
one of the things that we'vedone with our team is to say

(07:02):
there is no good or bad in newtechnology, there's only
curiosity.

SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
That's a good way to put it, yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Well, speaking of thatcuriosity, you made your
transition between tech andtravel.
I know you worked at MammothMountain for a few years, and
then you've been leading the waywith uh Visit California as the
VP of marketing uh for nearly 20years now.
So tell us how you actually madethat leap into travel.
Was it and clearly you wentwest, you went from east to

(07:30):
west, you went to you know foruh college in San Francisco.
So you you know you made acommitment to the West Coast.
Um was it that was it the loveof adventure and um and travel
that made you want to jump intothe industry?
What what brought about thattransition?

SPEAKER_01 (07:44):
Yeah, that's the right, that's the right
question, and it's a long story,but I'll say this.
I I found California.
It's gonna sound like I'mmarketing California, Dan, and
I'm not, but I am a real, I am areal life case study in that the
opportunities were endless hereuh for a person in business and

(08:04):
particularly somebody thatwanted to learn new things and
be on the forefront of what washappening.
Um and so it's a place wheremany things can happen.
I will also say it's a placewhere an outdoor adventurist and
a skier can really have a greattime.
And one of the things I didafter Silicon Valley is I I
actually said, hmm, I want totry something new.

(08:27):
I had a mentor once that said tome, I uh I always ask my bosses,
what what advice do you have forme?
What should I do?
And I think I was about 20.
And she said, always change jobsevery 10 years.
It keeps you so fresh.
And I remember thinking that shehad been like a furniture maker,
and then she was head ofengineering, and I I was her

(08:48):
admin assistant.
And I I thought, oh, I I Iwonder what that means.
That seems like it would bereally hard to do.
And and I think I understand itnow.
It's about tilling the soil andmaking sure that you know
exactly what's underneath andthat you're staying fresh and
that you're staying curious andopen to what's out there.
Um and so California providesthat because everybody's always

(09:12):
inventing something here.

SPEAKER_00 (09:14):
For sure.
And I remember when I firstmoved to California, everyone
was telling me it's you know,that's the place that you can
snowboard and surf on the sameday or ski and surf depending on
your preference.
Mine is snowboarding, and I wasso keen to do that.
I've snowboarded at Mammoth, andum, but I didn't get to do
surfing on the same day.
And uh, but nevertheless, it'sit it highlights everything that
California has to offer.

(09:34):
So that's why I say you're youknow you're blessed in many ways
to have such an incredibleregion of the world to be able
to promote because it has somuch to offer.
But tell tell us a little bitabout Visit California, the
organization, and your rolethere, Lynn.

SPEAKER_01 (09:46):
Yeah.
Yeah, so I'm head of marketingfor Visit California, and that's
meant many things in the last 20years.
When we first started, um, we'revery focused and still are on
California's brand, our brandhealth, and doing one of our
guiding principles is doing whatthe industry can't do for
itself.

(10:07):
Um, and I have to be honest,coming out of private enterprise
and working for a DMO, I had anincredible opportunity uh to
learn.
And um and to learn about whatthe role a DMO plays, but also
to bring some of the ethos anduh planning focus that I had

(10:29):
learned in the Silicon Valley totravel marketing.
And so it was an incredible ridefor me and learning curve, going
from the ski industry to um totravel, because what we were
able to do is first andforemost, and I had no idea.
I guess I should back up andsay, when I was at Mammoth, I

(10:50):
got to sit on a committee thatwas run by Carolyn Batetta, our
CEO at Visa California.
And she's uh a magnificentvisionary for California in the
travel industry.
And I was sitting in the roomtrying to understand how my
selling tickets and my budgetattached to these big brand

(11:13):
initiatives.
And I was listening to her, andbecause coming out of
technology, you don't have bigbudgets to do giant marketing
programs.
You're like scrappy influencermarketing or earned media
marketing.
And so I had learned a lot ofthat and digital marketing.
But to sit there and listen toher talk about big brand
marketing, I became totallyenamored with this idea that

(11:35):
that style of messaging and bigbrands and look and really
embodying a brand and developinga brand with media dollars was
an incredible opportunity if youcan combine it with the digital
acumen that was emerging at thattime uh in both uh the web and

(11:57):
social media.
You know, you said like what'swhat's been happening.
And so if I had to think aboutthis, I think about it in terms
of like this evolution where westarted um in doing brand
marketing.
When I started, our entirebudget was a media budget for
television advertising.
And Arnold Schwarzenegger wasthe governor of California.

(12:19):
And he had offered, I think Ican say this, he had offered his
talent uh to help supportCalifornia, like the ultimate
influencer, right?
Uh he had been skiing up in uhanother state, and some of the
people from the ski industry hadcome forward and said, Hey, you
should ski in California.
And so that's how I got involvedas we started to work on

(12:43):
advertising that was specific touh him, his talent.
Um, and then and then as Ijoined the organization and sat
in Sacramento, the capital ofCalifornia, and looked at
California, it became very clearto me that there was so much
opportunity to support all ofCalifornia from this central

(13:06):
point of creating a brand andenabling tools that help the
entire state flourish.
Um, and so that's that's whatwe've been doing really in
different ways, touchingconsumers and working with our
industry partners.
So if you think about it, VisitCalifornia has a mission um to
create desire for the Californiaexperience.

(13:29):
That's a pretty lofty mission,especially for the fourth
largest economy in the world,right?
You know, you're not gonna haveto create awareness for it, but
but creating desire for thatexperience is a is a complex
process because it we are solarge.

SPEAKER_00 (13:47):
For sure.
No, you mentioned a number ofinteresting things there, of
course.
We have to give uh full creditto Arnie, the governator, and
what he and I think when youjust think about remarkable life
stories, because he certainly isalso one of those people like
that.
I don't I don't think he'soverly divisive politically, but
I mean when you look at whathe's accomplished in his life,
um, from rising up in Austria,moving to the US, becoming the

(14:08):
governor, but it's like he's anincredible marketer, a very uh
savvy businessman, and so uh andobviously a great advocate for
the state.
And so uh uh you know you arecertainly blessed with uh the
celebrities that obviously canpromote California, but uh tell
us a little bit about the yourrole as a marketer for the state
of California or for the forVisit California.

(14:29):
Um what does your marketing looklike when you plan out for 2026
your campaigns and like yeah,tell us a little bit about the
way that your tourism boardfunctions.

SPEAKER_01 (14:40):
Yeah, I think that's interesting because I think
there are all tourism boards arenot created equally.
I think it makes that this avery interesting time to be
working in partnership.
And a lot of it is based on ourbusiness model, and this is one
of the things that um makes ourindustry so interesting.
But Visit California's businessmodel is that we support the

(15:01):
entire industry.
We have a number of differentdestination marketing
organizations and stakeholdersthat are part of what we call
our tourism ecosystem.
And so when my team, whetherwe're in a paid, owned trade
channels, social media, we arealways thinking about how do we

(15:27):
create economic prosperity forCalifornia?
How do we drive incrementalvisitation?
And how do we measure thatincremental success with a
straight line to our program?
And so we do that in a varietyof different ways, but
principally our strategies liein a focus on consumers.

(15:51):
And so I think maybe that wasone of the first observations we
made, and one of the, I think,brilliant things that that our
organization and ourstakeholders did was to free us
up to say, go do pure marketingthat drives the economy and
protected our funding from that,so that we are a private-public

(16:12):
partnership, but the majority ofour funding comes from our
stakeholders.
And those stakeholders and ourboard is focused on making sure
that we serve consumers andserve the industry as a result.
So the more we grow visitation,we benefit from it.
And so that's what we've beendoing for the last 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 (16:32):
That's great.
And when it comes to inbound,like so there's obviously
international travelers into theUnited States headed to
California.
There are Americans that arevery keen to see California or
come back to California.
And then of course you've got uhCalifornians that are very keen
to see their own backyard.
When it comes to how VisitCalifornia speaks to all three
of those, do you have certainkind of mandates or priorities?

(16:55):
And and do you've actuallygenuinely keen to know this when
especially having lived there,because there is so much to see
and do throughout the state ofCalifornia, uh, how do you
market to people within thestate, or is that part of your
your remit?

SPEAKER_01 (17:09):
It is not.
So the the goal for VisitCalifornia is to grow our
tourism economy.
And that does not mean uhmarketing in-state or uh let's
just say, think of it asrecirculating traffic uh from
one destination to the other.
I I think that um there are manydestinations within California

(17:31):
that have the dollars and thefocus to take a look at in-state
uh traffic.
However, that being said, thereare a couple of times that our
board has overridden thatstatute in our mandate.
And uh those times were at 9-11and actually just this last year
with the terrible fires in LosAngeles.
And so um we also in duringduring COVID did and in-state

(17:58):
marketing specifically to createdesire for California with a 40
million population base.
Uh it is uh uh an opportunityfor us, for sure, to increase
businesses and to support thetourism industry, but it is not
a focus.
So maybe sometimes we may buynational media and it will be

(18:19):
seen by in-state.
Certainly our digital programsare seen by in-state, but from a
targeting perspective, our focusis growing the tourism economy.

SPEAKER_00 (18:28):
Really interesting.
I appreciate you sharing thatbecause I think that'll be
interesting for our listeners aswell to know and understand.
So when we're thinking aboutinbound travelers, then
obviously you do haveinternational, which is a clear
priority to bring people intothe country and to the
destination.
Um, but how does that balancethen with Americans looking to
travel to California if it's allinbound?
How do you balance those two?
And if you wouldn't mind, too.

(18:49):
I mean, sharing some of thestats.
I always find uh statsinteresting.
The ones that'll share with ourlisteners that are in Canada
that always amaze me, Lynn, isthat you know, our national
pastime is known as hockey, icehockey as it gets called, other
places, so we just call ithockey.
But in California, there'sactually more there's obviously
the population of California islarger than the population of
Canada, so there's there's onething.
Um you mentioned it's the fourthlargest economy, which I think

(19:11):
people uh many people stilldon't realize just the scale of
uh industry in in California.
But uh to highlight the pointabout industry and population
size, there's actually morepeople that play inline uh
hockey, like so that theyrollerblading as it was called,
or inline skating.
Uh there's more Californiansthat actually play that sport
than Canadians across ourcountry playing ice hockey.

(19:34):
And I'm like, man, we we wecan't even dominate that.
It's like uh so but it wasamazing, even living in
California.
There's like a lot of peoplethat actually do play ice ice
hockey.
It has gotten more importantanyway.

SPEAKER_01 (19:44):
But tell Well, uh here's a fun, here's a fun
personal fact.
My son went to ice hockeyschool.

SPEAKER_00 (19:51):
Oh, fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 (19:52):
I'm glad he's a Californian, and I don't even
exactly know how that happened,but I will tell you San San Jose
has a wonderful arena, and theyhave a shark arena, and we we
went down to watch the sharksone game, and that was all it
took.
He was he was sold.
So, anyway, I I think we havesome really good arenas and
great sporting events that sortof help perpetuate any kind of

(20:13):
sport here.
Indoor, outdoor, in the arena.
Yeah, you asked a reallyimportant question about our
stats, uh, and specificallyabout our in inbound traffic and
inbound traffic patterns.
And I think it's especiallyimportant this year because
obviously we're seeing um adecline in international travel.
And so we know that there is andwe are very much tied to um

(20:38):
sentiment and what we call brandhealth of both the United States
and obviously we are stewards ofthe California brand and
California's brand health.
At Visit California, um what weare doing from a marketing
perspective is leaning prettyheavily into uh both
international and domesticmarkets, but in different ways.

(21:01):
In the international markets, wehave about we have 13 markets
where we are specificallyfocused, and that means we've
got offices in those markets,and they represent the majority
of our travel to uh Californiafrom an inbound perspective and
our projected future travel.
Um and so those offices areincredibly important because

(21:23):
they're on-the-ground extensionsof Visit California, and they
have traditionally been oursales channels and feeding back,
intelligence and informationthat's qualitative and
substantiating a lot of ourinternal research that we're
getting.
Um we've got a great team atVisit California focused on
really supporting uh thoseregional markets and putting

(21:47):
taking our core marketingprogram and extending that.
Domestically, we've got a brandbudget.
So we're spending um dollarsspecifically to reach consumers
with our key message, and we cantalk more about how we do that
and what we do because that'sshifting quickly.

(22:10):
But I spoke about advertisingand and the importance of
advertising and paid contentdistribution and organic content
and how that all works togetherin an ecosystem to create a
storytelling platform, and thatis what we do domestically.
We are targeting those peoplethat uh have an interest in
coming to California, and we'revery lucky that that's a lot of

(22:31):
people.

SPEAKER_00 (22:31):
Yeah.
And it will continue to be forsure.
So that this is where asmarketing has changed, and you
know, you mentioned that youknow the priority was TV
campaigns, and now it's it's acombination of um um online
channels, and and so tell us alittle bit about the marketing
mix today and specifically abouttechnology, like what role uh

(22:54):
technology plays, becauseobviously with those with those
ads, you're trying to get peopleto you know to the Visit
California website and then tolearn more information.
So tell us a little bit what themarketing mix looks like today,
and then what what roletechnology plays in that.

SPEAKER_01 (23:07):
Yeah.
Well, now you're singing thetune I love because I think that
you can create all the greatmessages you want that resonate
and that are brilliant strategy,but if you cannot connect them
to the right people at the righttime, then they're falling on
deaf ears.
And and so our ability to usetechnology to target our

(23:30):
audiences, um, specifically inmedia, but also across all our
channels.
I think um I'll use the wordstorytelling instead of content
because I feel like that is aword uh and a storytelling
platform has the ability tocreate messages that people want

(23:53):
to hear.
Right?
They're engaging.
You you are creating astorytelling platform here with
with your show, right?
And you put a lot of thoughtinto how you do that, and and
and and I think that it createsan engaging dialogue and
relationship with a brand.
It doesn't become a one-wayhere, we are the ultimate

(24:14):
playground.
You should think about a trip toCalifornia.
Um, and and so and so all ofthat is theoretical, it where it
kind of meets um more tacticalexecutions is when we look at
the assets we own, like ourwebsite, like our social media
channels, like our podcastourselves, we have one.

(24:38):
Um, and and what we do toarticulate those messages and to
translate those messages in waysthat work in a multimodal
environment, and increasinglythinking about how are we
delivering content for machinesand how are we delivering

(24:58):
content for humans.
And I think that's the mostsimplistic way for me to
describe it because it's veryeasy to get caught up in the
technology, but to stay true tosaying if we can create a
platform that is discoverable byboth machines and humans, that

(25:19):
AI discoverability will pay offthe investment we've made in
this storytelling platform.
And we're sort of calling it uhan advanced content platform,
which has AI discoverability, ithas distribution, production,
and obviously the technologythat underlies it all and
enables it.

SPEAKER_00 (25:39):
That's really interesting.
And I guess that's where, youknow, currently with people
looking up California and doingtheir research, and as part of
the reason I was keen to ask thequestion about you know who
you're speaking to andprioritizing international,
domestic, um, and local, becauseI would because of I guess I
would qualify as internationaland local when I was living
there because I would do allsorts of searches to try and

(25:59):
figure out what else I was gonnasee while we were living in
California.
And I was watching all theseYouTube videos of people, and
and I should actually call ityou mentioned your podcast,
which is which is fantastic.
It's uh I listened to a coupleepisodes and it's called
California Now for any of ourlisteners, which you can find.
Yeah.
And um, and to me, that's justlike you know, it's Visit
California and California Now,this is like these are the so I
very much was in a CaliforniaNow mo um frame of mind when I

(26:22):
was living there.
I wanted to go to Yosemite, Iwanted to see all the national
parks.
I was um and so when it comes tothis platform and how you guys
are leveraging, I guess, VisitCalifornia, because that's
something that I I was alsoutilizing to see like things to
do.
And um so so tell us, I guess,how important the website is and
and being able to showcaseeverything that uh California

(26:44):
has to offer.

SPEAKER_01 (26:45):
Yeah.
When when you so the website'sshifting its role a little bit
in in the consumer ecosystem,and I suppose we'll get to that
in a moment, but the website isa critical component of our
program today, and we see itcontinuing uh to perform
important functions as we moveforward.
I I will say this about um thewebsite, it is also the only

(27:08):
program that we can draw astraight line to an incremental
billion dollars to the tourismeconomy in California.
Last year we crossed thatbillion dollar mark through our
research and talking to peoplethat have come here and visited
the website or like yourself,listen to content that we have
put through our own channelscalled California Now and and

(27:31):
and really tried to do authenticstorytelling that serves
consumers and helps them intheir travel planning journey,
which is complex even with smallstates and small getaways, like
to your point.
But when you're talking about$150 billion plus tourism
economy, um, you're reallytalking about a lot of options

(27:52):
for your vacation.
I heard um, I heard on one ofyour earlier podcasts um someone
talk about the complexity of thetourism ecosystem.
And um, and I love hearingpeople outside of California
talk about complexity because Ithink in California we think,
wow, this is so complicatedbecause of the number of players

(28:16):
we have in our tourism ecosystemfunnel and the number of options
that travelers have today uh forinformation sources.
And I think we're all here uh totry to make that easier for them
and to try to provideinformation so that they can
find what they're looking forquickly.
Um, and everybody has adifferent role in in providing

(28:36):
that.

SPEAKER_00 (28:37):
Well, it's interesting you mentioned about
websites and their relevance,which is one of the things that
I find fascinating, especiallynow in this age of AI.
I heard someone actuallydescribe it at a conference.
I was in Orlando a few days agoat this digital travel summit
conference, and one of mycolleagues from Hotel Planner
described AI as the newinternet.
It's like there's this newthere's a I love saying there's

(28:59):
like, have you heard there'sthis new internet?
And it's it's uh uh it made melaugh, but it was also you
because it is the idea of likeyou associate Google as the
internet, and then you associateChat GPT as this new internet,
this new interface.
And the part that I findfascinating, because I'm always
uh obsessing over consumerbehavior, that was you know such
a big role for me in my careerthroughout marketing and a big

(29:20):
focus of our podcast is like howconsumer behavior is changing.
And one of the things thatanother presenter, Brennan from
Propelic, who's one of ourpartners, he was just had done
this report that highlightedthat today, uh with SEO dropping
for a lot of uh a lot of uhorganizations, you know, it's uh
that search uh generative searchtraffic is now about 5%, uh, but

(29:42):
it could be as much as 50% intwo years.
And there's all this talk aboutwhat is the future of websites
in an age where people are usingAI tools for planning.
And this is where you know, youbeing ahead of the curve, I'm
keen to get your take on thisbecause you have such a large
remit, such an important part ofthe country that you're
responsible.
For.
So how are you?
I'm genuinely keen to ask youthis kind of open question about

(30:04):
how you are seeing AI and howyou're embracing it as an
organization.

SPEAKER_01 (30:08):
Yes, I this is my favorite question.
So I and it's my favoritequestion because I, you know, I
love the idea that we can'tcontrol the stream that we are
playing in.
Right.
And I love that because I thinkit's part of it's it's by
definition, our environments arealways the marketing environment

(30:33):
in which we play is always notin our control.
But if you look at AI, it isexponentially moving more
quickly than we can keep up.
And so I'll tell you aphilosophy and then I'll be very
specific with my responsebecause my philosophy is don't
try to control it.
Definitely monitor it.
And uh, if you're sitting on thebank waiting for the stream to

(30:58):
stop moving, you're gonna growold waiting because there are
different changes every singleday.
And so um that it can be veryoverwhelming, I think, for
marketers to say, how do I solvethis?
How do I think about this for myorganization?

(31:20):
Particularly because, and Iheard Chris say this, so I'll
repeat it uh on your podcast.
He said, um, it's not, you know,travel isn't a particularly um
technology-oriented sector.
Now, I think many of yourlisteners are, so obviously.
Um, but I think um it makes it areally interesting and complex

(31:44):
problem, which is what I thinkour organization enjoys
approaching.
And so what we did a couple ofyears ago is we wrote a
technology roadmap very, verysimply.
It was about, I don't know,three years ago.
And it was um a technologyroadmap, not based on what we

(32:06):
heard from the industry, butfrom like a technology strategy
class at Berkeley to listen tohow AI works and what the
foundations are in an evergreenway, not like what's the latest
sizzly toy, but what what is itreally?
And where are the opportunitiesand what are the ethical

(32:28):
considerations and how should webe thinking about resourcing it?
And if we're running largeorganizations, what's the best
way to do that?
And and and it really sort ofhelped us frame up a couple of
questions.
And I'll just um I'll just saythese questions were written a
few years ago.
They were about should we bethinking about this for our
business now?

(32:48):
Just like really simplequestions.
And there's like things that nowpeople are already looking at.
What we did is we took that andsaid, okay, let's look at, you
know, how would I startevaluating tech platforms?
What is the timing from start tofinish and the execution of any
kind of project like this?
Is it distracting or is itsomething I can build upon for

(33:10):
my organization?
And as we started to think aboutit internally within our
marketing team, we started toalso think about, and we know
that our industry is going toneed tools and enablement and
education.
And what should our role be?
And it was really hard for us tosay what our role should be

(33:32):
because I think it wasn't aproblem to be solved.
It is an environmental factor tobe part of.
And if does that make sense?
And so if you think about itthat way, the only way to think
about focusing on it is tocreate some guidelines and

(33:53):
guardrails for yourself so thatyou don't go so far over
exploration that you forget yourcore business.
And so our approach uh to AI andhow we thought about it was
what's some low-hanging fruit?
Uh, you know, besides themanagement piece, educating your
people, putting in guidelinesfor the organization, making

(34:15):
sure we protect our IP and allof those important things.
Um, and I started talking toleaders in in technology and
travel to find out what theywere thinking.
And I just um I and I knew I hadan opportunity.
We were launching a new roadtrip site.

(34:35):
We've got 600 pieces of contentin Drupal, but 72 curated pieces
of editorial.
I have 60,000 editorial pieces,tons of professional editorial.
It's a really great AI problemuh in terms of creating
personalized and dynamicitineraries that we might be
able to approach.
And so I went to a friend inSilicon Valley and I said, I'm

(34:55):
trying to educate myself.
And she said, Oh, you shouldtalk to one of my founders.
And um, that was the founder ofMind Trip, Andy.
So that was like a kismetmoment.
I called him up two years agoand he didn't have staff yet.
And I said, you know, my friendtold me from Costa Noah
Ventures, told me I should callyou.

(35:16):
And he said, Yeah, I'm doing atravel application.
But he had been a very um, hehad been a very, very successful
serial entrepreneurialentrepreneur, and I had learned
enough in the Silicon Valley toknow that we weren't selecting a
technology, we're selectingpeople behind a technology that
were willing to work in apartnership fashion.

(35:37):
And so that's what I was lookingfor.
I talked to a lot of otherpeople too.
They were doing great things.
Um, and so I think it's been acollective effort.
We launched uh last March our umAI version, or I'm gonna say we
we actually took our existingwebsite and we put an AI module

(35:58):
on it and we've let it incubateto watch how consumers are using
it, and it has been a fantastic,fantastic experiment.

SPEAKER_00 (36:09):
Well, I want to get into that because I'm genuinely
curious to know what you've seenand how the consumer journey has
changed.
I like that you mentioned thewhole, you know, just kismet
connection in California, butthat's one of the amazing things
about not only the valley, butCalifornia and the industry
that's there.
And it's certainly, you know,there has been this um uh the
trends emerge from Californiaand they kind of go up the coast

(36:31):
and then they spread from westto east and they eventually get
back to where you grew up andwhere I'm based.
And like uh but it doesn'talways work that way with
trends, but there is certainly alot to be said for that.
That California's often beenahead, and some of these trends
either make their way across thecountry or they don't.
But when they do, this is anemerging long-term trend.
And I think the the thing, youknow, you mentioned that was two

(36:52):
years ago.
I mean, uh Chat GPT came outthree years ago to the public,
and it's amazing to think thatit's been three years now, or
it's been two years since youhad that conversation, and now
how fast we're moving.
So tell tell us you know whatwhat you what you've seen, like
you know, in that time in thelast year.
Tell us about the some of thethe insights that you've been
able to glean about.
I I'm endlessly intrigued abouthow people are using it as a

(37:14):
planning tool.
I think that's one of the bigdevelopments.
So many people are using it andgoing into travel agents saying
this is now what I want to book.
They're educated and informed.
Yeah, what what have you seen?

SPEAKER_01 (37:23):
Yeah, I I I um well first let me tell you what gave
me the confidence to make theinvestment.
We did a consumer journey study,and I think you'll be interested
in this, particularly becauseyou were asking about the
consumer journey.
And in the consumer journeystudy, we were trying to find
out sort of relative influenceon destination selection of

(37:44):
different tools.
So, how many people are usingprint or OTAs and where they're
getting their inspiration fromand their planning
consideration?
And as we sort of were puttingthat out, I sat down with my
research team and said, we'vegot to ask about AI.
And my research team was like,no, it's too early.
It's like it was, and they wereright, it was too early, but I

(38:07):
wanted to get an early baselineuh to try to understand.
And what came what came back forus was um what is a dream for
me.
It was what I was hoping wouldcome back, which was obviously
there are generationaldifferences.
Um, about at the time that wedid this, which was last year,
of course, this is all differentnow.
And focus right, I think, isannouncing something like on

(38:28):
average, 30% of people are usingAI.
So, but but at the time we didthis, uh, we got about 8% of
people.
And what I really wanted to findout is if they knew what an LLM
was and if they knew what whatsearch was, and if they
considered search summaries, AIor search.

(38:48):
And if you hit AI mode, do youknow that that sits under
Gemini?
Like, where are people uh intheir understanding?
Consumers, general masspopulation.
And so we came back with about8%.
But when we asked of the peoplewho had used uh that eight
percent what their satisfactionlevels was, it was 93%.

(39:10):
Wow.
I know pause for dramaticeffect.
So 93% for a marketer oflikelihood to recommend, that
tells you that this thing isgoing to move like wildfire.
And if we don't jump in earlyand quickly to understand user
behavior patterns, it's justit's a missed opportunity.

(39:33):
And so we moved super quickly atthat time.
Um and and sort of with theconfidence of that research to
say, let's do something on openAI, let's work with a
progressive company.
Um, and so Mind Trip, who wasthe original person that I had
called for advice on AI, um, itturns out that uh they he he he

(39:56):
he uh had hired a team andbrought his folks in, and we
worked together in uh what wereally needed, which was a
partnership.
Because uh I have used the wordecosystem and I'm not using it
lightly.
I think none of us could do thisby ourselves, and I don't mean
the strength of like ourindividual subject matter

(40:16):
expertise.
I mean it takes an incrediblelift to be able to support
consumers with uh authenticcontent in meaningful ways in an
AI ecosystem.
And particularly because wedon't control what's happening
in the search behavior rightnow.

(40:37):
We don't we don't control what'shappening, let's just call it in
big tech.
Um, but we do control ourability to talk to them and
partner and figure out how wemake our content more
discoverable.
And so we thought, well, let'sjust deep dive into the content
we have.
And we were in a lucky position.
We have lots of content.

(41:00):
We have six million assets inour UGC library, like our
digital assets, audio assets,short form video assets, and and
and and curated content uh thathad come up through an editorial
process were very meaningful andjust perfect training data for
what we were trying to puttogether.

(41:21):
The vision that we had thatwe're still working on, and I
think brand USA is doing afantastic job.
And I'm so pleased that theyended up selecting the same um
architecture because I thinkthat creates additional
possibilities for us on anational level to uh be able to
think about RAG models thatreally serve the consumer and

(41:44):
have access to a vast store ofour content and data.
Um, and that is the only acronymI'm gonna use on this whole
call.

SPEAKER_00 (41:55):
We've got to make sure our listeners know what
that means.
So do you mind actually justclarifying it?

SPEAKER_01 (42:00):
Retrieval augmented generative models.
So this is really the way that Ithink about RAG is um, and I
think it's important to thinkabout it, but it's sort of a
tech stack that sits on OpenAI.
And so if OpenAI is thefoundation for Mind Trip, and

(42:20):
then we are populating Mind Tripwith the content that we have
developed that specializes inCalifornia, and then we have
wonderful destinations thatjumped in even ahead of us with
this in Monterey, Truckee, thesegreat destinations, and they are
also creating content librariesthat help us understand what
they're doing in sustainability,in uh real information around

(42:44):
Highway One, and so verygranular local content.
Now enter brand USA withnational content, and we can
start to create a beautifulpicture for consumers who really
don't begin and end all of theirdestinations within state
boundaries all the time.

SPEAKER_00 (43:04):
Yeah.
And I would the reason I wantedyou to clarify that too, and
think for our audience is that,you know, in thinking through
AI, and this is where we'retrying to just demystify it for
those people that are not asconversant in the technology,
but you know, there's threelayers to it.
I mean, there's the chips andthe data centers, there's the
LLMs, and then there's theseapplications that are built on
top of those.
And this is where it's reallyexciting.

(43:25):
It's like that first phase ofwebsites being built.
Um, and but at that point duringthat dot-com revolution that we
both lived through, you knewwhere to go.
You know, you knew you needed awebsite and you'd find a web
agency.
And so, right now, I think mostpeople, even in hearing what you
just described, which is youknow, rather than working
directly with OpenAI, you haveall this amazing content, but

(43:46):
you it's also proprietarycontent, and you have to be
mindful of what you're otherwisetraining the machine on.
So how how and so tell us alittle bit of, yeah, I this is
the part I'm really intrigued tounderstand, and I think our
listeners will be too, is thatyou know, in order to take an
organization like yours that hasall this amazing content, you
need to make sure that you'restaying relevant and connecting
with international and domestictravelers that want to come to

(44:07):
California, whether it be them,searching your website and then
getting you know planning toolsor even um uh the ability to
chat with them.
But you know, the there's beenso much potential unlocked with
generative AI, and clearlyyou've been leveraging Mindtrip
to be able to do that.
But when when you startedworking with an organization
like Mindtrip, what were some ofthe, I guess, the the challenges

(44:29):
to be aware of for anyorganization embracing this new
path?
You know, in terms of gettingyour data and your content in
order in such a way to be ableto utilize it and surface
because it's different with awebsite as you know, when you
decide, okay, here's ourtop-level navigation, here's the
here's the destinations you'regoing to promote.
And this is exactly the pointthat you made, Lynn, that I
found really interesting, whichis that you can't control

(44:50):
everything.
You just need to make sure thatyou give it all the information,
and then a user can retrievethat based on what they're
searching for.
So tell us a little bit aboutthat, because I'm sure people
will find that interesting.

SPEAKER_01 (45:00):
Yeah, and I'll and I'll go back to your other
question too, which is aboutwhat we've found uh so far.
But let's talk about theexecution of the platform
because uh one of the challengesis resources.
I didn't I didn't have two dataengineers and website developers
and content people sittingaround looking for a project,

(45:21):
right?
You're already at 100% umcapacity.
And I think uh our content teamswere wonderful and and and
website teams and embracing thechange, but it is change
management at its at it at itscore.
Um there's a paradox therethough.
So you're talking about umthings that are both easier and

(45:44):
more difficult than webdevelopment.
They're easier in that by itsvery nature and LLM is natural
language processing.
So there are ways to develop andcreate feedback loops that are
far easier and more scalablethan the traditional data feed

(46:11):
model.
I'm going to create a datastructured data table that feeds
into my CMS that creates, youknow, content pieces that I'm
going to aggregate, um, asopposed to um other ways of
creating new content that umthat actually borrow from the
editorial process.

(46:31):
And I'm gonna just describe mytraditional editorial process
because I think that's part ofthe secret sauce.
And we believe strongly in this.
So um you hear people say allthe time to you know, leverage
technology but stayhuman-centered.
Um, and so what does that meanexactly?
The way that we translate it,and I believe in this too, is
that that the editorial processis fundamentally founded on

(46:55):
human creativity.
And human creativity is uh alsopart of that, is just knowing
what's going to happen next.
So if I've had a phone call witha major California business and
I understand what they'll bepackaging next year, that
doesn't exist in digital contentanywhere.

(47:16):
AI is not going to be able toprovide that.
If I know that that where theOlympics are destinations are
going to be held in 28, whicheverybody knows and it's
publicly available information,but maybe I have some
information specific todifferent kinds of content that

(47:38):
we should be packaging.
And so that getting at the topof that training data and
determining how to feed thatinformation in is, I think,
where the magic lies.
And it is the intersection ofhuman curation and machine
scalability.
And I'm not just saying that tobe pithy.
I really believe it, it's partof the roadmap.

unknown (48:01):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (48:01):
Well, and what's the one of the things that's uh the
complexity of a role like yoursas well, which uh on this
series, I mean, this is like aperfect way to uh conclude this
series from my point of view,having a conversation with you
about Visit California given thesize and the scale and how early
you are, but also and the thelearnings, which I want to get
into here in a moment, some ofthe other insights you have.

(48:21):
But the one of the things I justwanted to highlight was the
complexity of the all thestakeholders that you have, and
like one of them being all ofthe points of interest within
the state that clearly want tobe featured.
So you you know, it used to bethe case that you could kind of
marry the two together in a in aweb environment.
You've got to cater to thesevisitors, and then you also have
to manage the expectations ofall these stakeholders and and

(48:44):
and how much attention theirregion is going to get or their
you know their wineries, and andso how do you manage that
component as well as you'rebuilding something out?
Because you've I you have tohave the consumer mindset first,
um, but you also need to makesure that you are surfacing the
right information that is goingto convert best and also
represent the entire, you know,all of the communities

(49:07):
throughout California.

SPEAKER_01 (49:09):
Yeah.
I I think one of the things, andI can give you some very
specific examples, but one ofthe things we're able to do is
create relative weight based onwhat we've already written
about.
So this is obviously all sittingon an open AI platform.
And you know, you've hit on someof the the Achilles heel of what

(49:30):
we need to look at.
Businesses close.
And I would never write anitinerary that said, here's all
the things you should do, andthis business is closed.
That just would not be somethingthat I would write.
But uh what you know, whenyou're working with an AI agent,
those things do happen and theydo come up, right?

(49:50):
That's part of theuncontrollable environment.
And we're lucky right now thatconsumers, it actually lends a
little air of, I think,authenticity to what we're
doing.
Um, but that's my that's notthat's not research, that's a
personal opinion.
Um, I think that generaldiscoverability of California
content is a challenge.
And then generaldiscoverability.

(50:12):
So if you are, let's just takesay Los Angeles or maybe uh
Temecula, and you're saying, Oh,I just did a search on a
Southern California destinationon your website, and I'd love to
see these things be surfaced.
What it does is it changes theeditorial function because then
what we can do is go back andlook at our content.

(50:34):
This is where our contentrepository is amazing.
We run editorial scrums likeevery week.
We are creating and pulling incontent through our human
channels and our sales channelsall the time.
And so that doesn't go away withAI.
What it does is it layers in anAI perspective to say, hey, this

(50:56):
came in and let's take a look atwhere these destinations are
featured.
And does it make sense vis-a-visconsumer behavior?
And so the last thing, I justdon't want to give anyone um
it's a balancing act in terms ofmaking sure that we are being
complete, that we are beingthoughtful, and that we are
giving consumers exactly whatwe're looking for.

(51:16):
And this is what make makesmarketing California so great,
because pretty much anyone thatcalls us and says, could we get
visibility, we're like, yes,please.
Um because because there are,and I shouldn't say pretty much,
all California businesses.
Um we we have and see uh valuein representing what they do,

(51:40):
and we've got an opportunity totell great stories that way.

SPEAKER_00 (51:43):
For sure.
And um, one thing on the datathat you mentioned that I had my
wow reaction to, and I justwanted to underscore that and go
back to it as we talk about thedata and get some additional
insights from you on the trendsand what you're seeing.
This is one of the ones thatstood out to me.
And the reason that um when Ilook at a company like Travel
AI, who's been a great partnerwith us as well, and Travel AI

(52:05):
runs many websites, and JohnLeotier, who's the s the they're
based up in uh Vancouver, heshares a lot of his insights on
LinkedIn to his credit, andcould partly because he wants to
see if other people are seeingthe same thing.
He can he can kind of hide awaythese success stories just to
have personal benefit from them,but credit to him, he shares
them.
But and one of the ones that hewas highlighting uh over the

(52:26):
last six months is theconversion rates of people who
are using AI tools can be likethree or four times greater.
So rather than a 10% conversionrate, it can be a 30 or 40%
conversion rate because someonehas done their research and this
is and they now they now havedecided this is where they want
to go, this is what they want todo, and they're committed,
they're committed to realizingthat.
So that so your point about itmuch the same um uh out output,

(52:51):
like it's consistent, but thisis new data.
Yeah, this is new data.
We're only just starting tounderstand how consumers are
being impacted by thistechnology.

SPEAKER_01 (52:58):
Okay, you're you're asking me my favorite question.
I get I get this, and I love Ilove this part of the
conversation because um, well,frankly, because it's working
and I don't need to look at dataand I don't need to look at
metrics.
When people say to me, How'syour web traffic?
I say, Do you mean how's my webengagement?

(53:18):
Because my web traffic is goingdown.
But I'm kind of thankful toGoogle for that because what
they're doing is answering thebasic questions.
And my hypothesis is thenconsumers are saying, huh, those
are I have a complex.
Let's just take it.
I'm coming to California, I havetwo kids and a dog.

(53:40):
I'd love to see somethingdifferent than San Francisco and
LA, but I know I would like tosee both of those regions.
Please give me somerecommendations.
That is probably what a Googlesearch looks like right now in
AI mode.
And so I love that because it'sthe first line of education.

(54:02):
And if I treat it as the firstline of education, then it tells
me what the orientation of mycontent should be, which is to
assume that that referraltraffic is going to be
fact-checking, creating a levelof, I think the product managers
at Google say confidence intheir vacation decisions.

(54:24):
And so if that's your if that'syour product vision, which I
love, then it speaks tointegrity in the content and it
speaks to a level of ofrelatively deep content.
But at the end of the day, theauthoritative voice on
California is comes from VisitCalifornia and Visit
California's partners.

(54:45):
And so by creating that, that'swhat's happening today.
Do I think that's going tohappen in the future?
And how that's going to happen?
I think the content will alwaysbe there.
The delivery mode and theplatforms and the methods uh are
what will shift.

SPEAKER_00 (55:15):
But it's exciting.
And I kind of you but you canoften start to see what's just
around the corner then by virtueof seeing those trends, having a
look at the uh the consumerjourney changes and knowing that
that is going to increaseconverti.
And you can say to partners, ifthey've used this tool um and
they're coming to you with afinalized itinerary, whether it
be a travel advisor or evengoing direct to a supplier,

(55:38):
that's one of the things thathas been clearly disrupted
already, or uh and appears to isOTAs, online travel agencies.
This is one of the big questionsis what is their role?
Because they they obviouslywanted to work with tourism
boards as well to promotedifferent destinations.
And tourism boards used tomarket themselves on OTAs, um,
but now all of a sudden there'sa high potential that they are
being disintermediated and thatand consumers are going direct

(56:00):
to suppliers ready to bookbecause they've done all their
homework and research.
It's no longer this exactexperience that you and I have
known for 20 years, where we doa they do a search engine
result, we get taken to an OTAwebsite, we look at a bunch of
different hotels, and then we goahead and book.
Um so so yeah, so tell me whereyou think this is headed.
Like what are some of the thingsthat now excite you about how

(56:20):
you the potential of this in2026 and beyond?

SPEAKER_01 (56:23):
Okay, you asked some really interesting questions in
there.
I'm gonna break it down intospecifically a milestone that we
hit in July, which is theclick-through on our AI links on
our road trip page, surpass thecurated content links.
This is critical for us.
And we executed this programpurposefully almost as a giant

(56:45):
research project.
We had a landing page for roadtrips, it had three different
entry port points.
One was assuming that peoplewere maybe early in the planning
stages and they did a quick quizand it gave them search results.
The second was that we were umcreating handcrafted, curated by

(57:06):
California experts.
So we're saying, look, a humanlooked at this.
Um, and the third one was AI,and that was the mind trip
application.
And we were seeing that middleoption being the clear favorite
early on.
And we were seeing that middleoption being the clear favorite.
And this was again, now we don'tcontrol how they're getting to

(57:27):
us.
So let's just leave the searchfunctionality and that growth in
the last year off the table fora moment and say people were
coming for curated content thatthey knew a human had touched.
I think it was early days fortrusting AI.
That is now we're seeing ashift.
I also think we're seeing repeattraffic and that high sort of

(57:50):
likelihood to recommend that wehad seen earlier in our studies
are coming through, and thosepeople are now starting to go
straight to AI.
It's giving us so muchconfidence that we're looking at
other places in the websitewhere we think we can solve
problems and in our contentcycle.
So that's that's one thing.
The second thing I'll say isthose that come in through AI

(58:11):
spend uh about nine minutes onthe website.
That I can't even that's a longtime for our website because our
website's goal is to get you offonto other websites and other
businesses in California.
We don't want you to spend timeplanning on our website.
We want you to go booking on ourpartner websites if we can.

(58:32):
But um, but so that's a thatthose are some early findings
for us.
The other thing that I will tellyou is that uh from a reporting
perspective, we took thereporting that comes in through
the queries and we started tomatch it with our Google
Analytics, and we also startedto do an overlay to take a look
at topic modeling andsegmentation.
And so a lot of very interestingthings came out of that that

(58:57):
were specific to um, I'll justsay, like in international.
This is what surprised me.
Why are there so many Spanishlanguage queries?
Like and and discussions.
And then I started, I couldn'thave possibly um anticipated

(59:17):
this because I couldn't have,but it this whole function, it
ended up being almostfact-checking for people who are
looking at the English languagewebsite and then wanting to go
much deeper and much morepersonalized in their um in
their first languages.
And so there's a lot ofinteresting little things that
you don't expect that come upthat help us give us ideas and

(59:40):
things that we didn't see in theoriginal roadmap.

SPEAKER_00 (59:43):
Well, that's fascinating.
I really appreciate sharing thatwith us because you know, you
and you'll appreciate this asboth a marketer and someone
based in California and that andand focused on technology.
Um, and being of um uh relativecontemporaries, you and I, I
think uh one of my landmarkbooks uh cross.
The chasm by Jeffrey Moore wayback in the 90s, right?

(01:00:03):
And I feel like that commonalitythat we started our conversation
with about the internet, newinternet, is that you know when
we look at tools like this, weare very much you had your
innovators and then you haveyour early adopters, and
obviously you're across both ofthose.
And then the question is, youknow, when do we hit that early
majority, late majority, and thelaggards?
And like crossing this chasm.
It seems to me with um withtools like these, like we're

(01:00:26):
we're just getting that we'recrossing the chasm.
Like we're these are the toolsthat all of a sudden now we'll
get much wider adoption.
And um, and so the one thing Iwould I know you've given so
much valuable advice in thisentire conversation.
I've just been like I've foundit so fascinating.
I would but I would love to goback to just this question about
um advice for other marketersbecause the reason I wanted to

(01:00:49):
frame it in that way is becauseyou are an innovator and early
adopter, but many people onlistening to this are you know
they're they're a lot of thiswould have been valuable
information, but they're soearly, and they're trying to
figure out what what do I do,how do I, how do I, how do I get
on this path, and how do I startrealizing benefit and their or

(01:01:09):
inside their organization, theymay not have an AI roadmap, they
don't necessarily and so I'dlove for you to be able to share
some advice for those tourismboards, those DMOs around the
world that are looking to you asan example to say, what should I
be doing?
And it's not just about choosingthe platform, it's really
obviously as an organization,you know, a culture change and

(01:01:30):
kind of realizing that we haveto embrace this and and we can't
get left behind because we'rewe'll make our we'll make our
our region irrelevant if peoplecan't discover us in this new
world of AI search.
So, yeah, I'd love for you tokind of finish off with some
additional advice from yourpoint of view to everyone out
there that could really benefitfrom some additional insights.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:49):
Yeah, I don't know if I'm an innovator.
I think I get to live inCalifornia, and so we do have an
obligation to lead, and I have avery um broad view of what
travel means to people and whatit means to our our economy.
So I think staying true to thatvalue, and what I mean by a

(01:02:09):
broad view is I I think travelis one of like it's it's a form
of diplomacy, right?
Like we get to do this everyday.
We used to have a a board chairthat said that.
And and so what my advice is tomyself is to stay open and
curious, um and in andunderstand that this is a fast

(01:02:34):
moving stream.
And so one of the things that wetry not to do is invest in
anything that's going to createa dead end, uh, either from a
technology perspective or thatwon't allow us to pivot easily.
So that's a practical advicepoint.
I think that um empowering yourteam, sharing your learning is

(01:02:55):
uh a fast way to support aculture of learning.
And and the tourism industry hasdone a great job, destination
internationals, US Travel, BrandUSA really embracing this and
looking at ways that we can behelpful.
And I think it's really helpedour teams uh to do that.
And we've got great, greatpartners.
I also think looking outside ofour uh industry, I I said that

(01:03:20):
early on, and I and I I see thatwith people who are trying to
learn from aerospace and tryingto learn from consumer packaged
goods and trying to learn fromum healthcare.
These are these are um segmentsthat are very different than
ours, but but they're andthey're using AI in different

(01:03:42):
ways, and it may spark somethoughts about uh technology you
want to use.
And then lastly, I would say umwith this current wave of VC
that has gone into the industryand the um I think we're about
to see a tidal wave ofapplications coming our way in

(01:04:04):
tools and AI offerings.
So first it was like, I'moverwhelmed by what AI is, and
then it's like, how am I gonnause AI?
And then it's gonna be like, howdo I answer all these vendors
who are trying to sell me AI?
Um, and so I think we need tostay tighter, tighter.
Like, one of the things I I loveabout working in California is
that we are truly acollaborative ecosystem.

(01:04:25):
And so if I have a question, Ican call up my friends in LA or
San Diego and we we talk aboutwhat we should be doing and we
work together to understand thatwe're part of it.
And I think that our ability toshare information and provide uh
tools to one another so thatwe're looking through a lens uh

(01:04:46):
consistently and that uh this isnot a I am not competing with
the pace of technology and I amnot a technology company, but I
will compete at the pace ofconsumer behavior.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:57):
That's a fantastic way to put it because I think
this is where so many people,and I'll include myself in the
travel industry working in amarketing capacity, are not
technologists, and it's veryhard to keep up with technology
and to know what technology toembrace.
And I love that you also justmentioned something that I
clearly we're gonna be inundatedwith is all of these options.
I mean, we're seeing it alreadynow with you know, from moving

(01:05:18):
from search engine optimizationto generative engine
optimization and tools that areall of a sudden coming out to
help companies just understandtheir discoverability in LLMs
and what they can do.
And it's very early, and a lotof that technology isn't
perfect, um, but companies needto be aware of it.
And uh um I saw that at aconference, people asked, what
tools should we use?
And there were six differentexamples, and people were

(01:05:40):
writing them down, and um, butit's still very early.
So I I I think you know there'sbeen so many valuable insights
from this conversation.
I've so thoroughly enjoyed uhmeeting you, Lynn, and being
able to talk to you aboutmarketing and tourism boards and
the world that we live in andwhere where we're headed.
Um I'd love to leave you withthe last word and also to make
sure that people can uh findmore information about Visit

(01:06:01):
California to be able to connectwith you and and make sure we
tell people all the places theyshould be able to go to to reach
out to you or connect with theorganization after this.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:10):
Oh, thanks.
Well, this has been fantastic.
I know there's uh there's notenough open dialogue about what
people are learning and frankly,uh how they're failing.
That that's how you learn.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:20):
Fail fast, exactly.
The fail fast.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:24):
Um, but we've had I've had a good time sp speaking
with you.
So I uh I look forward to seeingpeople online.
Um I'm very interested in inseeing what other people are
doing.
So if anybody, anything heresparked.
If I were listening to myselfright now, I'd be saying, How
are you doing this with a staffwith a small staff?

(01:06:44):
Who are you hiring?
What are your resources?
I'm sure there's a millionquestions.
I'm happy to answer them.
Um, I am L Carpenter atvisitcalifornia.com.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:53):
Wonderful.
Thank you for sharing youremail.
Thank you for sharing yourknowledge and your time with us.
Uh, I look forward to meetingyou in person at some point in
the near future, or likely maybein San Diego at the Focus Right
Conference later this year.
That would be great.
Thank you, Lynn.
Really appreciate you makingtime for this.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:07):
Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:09):
Thanks so much for joining us on this special
three-part series on how AI isimpacting destination marketing.
I hope you thoroughly enjoyedthe conversation here in part
two with Lynn Carpenter, thesenior vice president of
marketing for Visit California.
I found our conversation soincredibly inspiring,
insightful.
I learned so much, and Icouldn't imagine this series

(01:07:31):
having three better speakersthan kicking off with Jeanette,
having Lynn today.
And then next week, you're gonnahave the CMO for Discover Puerto
Rico joining us, Storm Tussey.
So make sure you're subscribedon the streaming platform of
your choice.
These episodes are releasingevery Thursday, but you can find
clips and highlights as well onour social channels, which are

(01:07:53):
LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagramat Travel Trends Podcast.
And thanks again to our friendsat Mind Trip for sponsoring this
series.
Until next week, save travels.