AI is changing how travelers discover and choose destinations. Not in one place – but across the entire journey. It’s influencing what gets surfaced, how options are compared, and how quickly decisions are made. That doesn’t require starting over. But it does require adjusting how marketing works.

The traveler journey is compressing – fewer steps, faster decisions, and shorter distance between inspiration and action. What used to take multiple searches, tabs, and comparisons is happening faster—and often within a single interaction. A traveler can ask one question and get a structured answer that narrows options immediately. That changes how destinations enter consideration.

Travelers aren’t just using AI to brainstorm. They’re using it to compare, narrow options, and move toward decisions. That shift changes where influence happens. Answers are surfacing earlier. Fewer steps separate discovery from action. And the path from “idea” to “choice” is getting shorter. This doesn’t replace search or websites. But it does reshape how they’re used.

Last year, we introduced AI for Travel. Since then, AI has moved deeper into how travelers search, plan, and decide. It’s no longer just supporting inspiration. AI is now influencing more of the traveler journey—shaping what gets surfaced, how options are compared, and how quickly decisions are made. AI for Travel 2.0 is a focused update on what’s changed—and how destination marketing needs to adapt right now.

Advance Travel Tourism's Midwest Team hosted an informative webinar, featuring expert discussions on Midwest travel trends, the four stages of the travel decision-making journey, and an engaging conversation with Mackinac Island's team.

Frida BahjaFrida Bahja came into tourism through environmental engineering, which means she never learned to see a destination as just a product. She sees it as a system , one with feedback loops, pressure points, and failure modes that don't announce themselves until something breaks. Now Director of Research at Experience Kissimmee and a researcher with SETTRA, she's spent her career studying [...]