The Wake-Up Call
At a recent industry conference it was mentioned that 90% of DMOs do not have an AI policy.
ChatGPT has been in the market for 3.5 years. AI is already deciding which hotels to recommend in your destination, which restaurants to surface, which experiences to highlight. And 90% of DMOs don't even have a policy.
But here's what matters more:
AI already has a policy about you.
From Search to AI-Led Planning
Travel discovery is moving from search to AI-led planning.
More than 900 million people now use AI tools every week, and travel is one of the first high-intent behaviours to shift.
People are no longer searching "best hotels in Qatar" and clicking through websites. They are asking: plan me a 3-day trip. Where should I stay? Where should I eat? What should I explore?
That changes the role of destination marketing organisations and tourism authorities. Marketing still matters. Storytelling creates desire. But that is no longer enough.
AI does not rely on destination storytelling. It relies on structured data it can read, understand and recommend with confidence.
Why the Long Tail Is Being Left Behind
Big chains and major aggregators are ready for this shift. The long tail is not. Independent hotels, local restaurants, guides and community-led experiences are the least likely to appear in AI-driven discovery, and the most likely to define what makes a destination distinctive.
Consider what AI actually needs to recommend a local restaurant or a family-run guesthouse: cuisine type, price range, opening hours, spoken languages, booking capability, accessibility, seasonal availability. Dozens of structured attributes.
Today, most independent suppliers exist as fragments: a Google pin, a TripAdvisor listing with three reviews, a Facebook page last updated in 2022. And it compounds. Every day the data layer stays thin, AI routes around the gaps.
The visible become more visible. The invisible fall further behind. This is not a future risk. It is already happening.
The role of Destination Marketing Organisations is no longer just content and promotion. It is to make destinations accessible to AI. There has never been a more powerful free distribution channel available to destinations. But only if DMOs choose to make AI work for them, before their boards start asking what role is left for them to play.
If DMOs are not the authoritative source of their supplier ecosystem database, they do not control how their destination is surfaced, understood or recommended.
Next month: why most destination supplier databases fail, and what it takes to make your local tourism ecosystem something AI can confidently surface and recommend in AI-driven discovery.
