Hotels, cruise lines, and tourism destinations risk losing bookings as AI-powered travel discovery reshapes how travellers search for experiences online, increasing pressure on hospitality brands to produce content that both consumers and machines can understand.
found that 57% of travellers use social media during some part of the trip journey, making digital visibility increasingly tied to customer acquisition and revenue generation.
Hospitality influencer Scott Eddy said many travel brands are still relying on polished images instead of producing content that explains their identity and experiences clearly enough for AI-driven recommendation systems.
“Most hospitality brands aren't actually marketing,” Eddy said. “They're documenting, but they're documenting the wrong way.”
He criticised hotels and destinations for posting “photos of rooms, pools, and food” without creating emotional connection or differentiation. “That's not a strategy; that's an inventory display,” he said.
The discussion highlighted growing pressure on hospitality operators to reduce dependence on paid advertising and online travel agencies by improving direct discovery through AI search and social platforms.
Eddy said storytelling has shifted from a branding exercise into a commercial requirement tied directly to visibility and bookings.
“Storytelling used to sit at the top of the funnel as a nice-to-have for awareness,” he said. “Now storytelling is the distribution. If your story isn't strong, you don't even get seen, and if you don't get seen, you don't get booked.”
He warned that many hospitality brands still create content “for humans scrolling, not for machines interpreting,” despite recommendation engines increasingly shaping travel discovery.
“The game is no longer about ranking pages. It's being understood by AI,” Eddy said.
According to Eddy, AI systems prioritise “structured, story-driven human content” such as detailed travel guides, searchable long-form articles, and experience-based storytelling rather than aesthetic-focused campaigns.
“AI doesn't care about your pretty photos,” he said. “It pulls from structured, story-driven human content.”
He added that hospitality groups should invest in long-form content explaining experiences in detail instead of relying on short captions or image-led campaigns.
“You need long-form content that actually explains your experience in detail, not surface-level captions—real substance,” Eddy said.
As AI-generated recommendations become more influential in travel planning, hotels, cruise operators, and tourism boards face mounting pressure to make content searchable, explainable, and visible across both social and AI-driven discovery channels.
