Tours and activities providers should start using generative AI like ChatGPT, Bing and soon-to-be-launched Google’s Bard now or risk their online marketing strategies becoming obsolete, an expert has warned. 

 

Speaking at the Arival 360 conference in Berlin, a leading event for in-destination providers of services such as tours and activities, technology consultant Marc Mekki warned attendees that they need to act now to tap into the opportunity presented by Generative AI.

 

“Tour operators shouldn’t be scared of AI – it can make things that exist even better. The worst thing the travel industry can do is ignore AI – it won’t go away.  Tour companies are sitting on a wealth of content that can be leveraged through AI in a positive way – act on it now or risk disappearing into the online abyss.”  

 

Marc has four key tips to get started:  

1. Don’t give up on traditional SEO just yet, this will be a gradual change before there is a tipping point  

2. Be prepared for when that tipping point comes – it will happen suddenly  

3. You shouldn’t just focus your marketing efforts on text-only content like blogs.  Instead, concentrate on leveraging AI to create compelling multi-media derivatives of your original content, such as audio, video, pictures, and more  

4. Experiment. Incredibly powerful generative AI tools to create videos, audio, images and text are proliferating fast and most are cheap or even free to try. Get ahead of this revolution.  - TradeArabia News Service