Email Marketing Trends in 2024 // Colors of Carlsbad Campaign // AI Updates to Google Maps // AI in Travel and Tourism

Tradigital Tourism Insights: The Power of AI and Future Trends in Travel and Tourism Marketing

The podcast ‘Tradigital Tourism Insights’ discusses new industry trends, research, and emerging technologies in travel and marketing. This episode investigates potential email marketing trends in 2024 and emphasizes the significance of privacy, personalization, AI, and mobile-friendly design. It also covers the 'Colors of Carlsbad' campaign, which creatively combines data analysis and aesthetics. A large segment discusses Google Maps' upcoming AI features and how it promises to revolutionize local business discovery. Finally, the podcast discusses a study from the World Travel and Tourism Council focusing on the role of AI in the tourism industry.

00:12 Introduction to Tradigital Tourism Insights

00:43 Exploring Email Marketing Trends in 2024

https://nethunt.com/blog/email-marketing-trends

06:26 Destination Focus: Colors of Carlsbad Campaign

https://colorsofcarlsbad.com/

https://mindgruve.com/blog/news/visit-carlsbad-signs-one-year-contract-extension-with-mindgruve

https://awol.com.au/popular-travel-colours-2019/74233

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carriecoolidge/2019/06/18/carlsbad-california-celebrates-trending-colors-with-special-events-and-experiences/?sh=77d98b335581

https://topdigital.agency/case-study/visit-carlsbad-colorsofcarlsbad/

09:48 Tech Spotlight: AI Updates to Google Maps

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-maps-launches-ai-powered-local-business-search/507219/

https://blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-generative-ai-local-guides/

16:11 Research Roundup: AI in Travel and Tourism

https://researchhub.wttc.org/?_gl=1*g35lpz*_ga*MTExNjc3ODk0NS4xNzA3MjM4NDM3*_ga_JM5GLX6V1W*MTcwNzIzODQzNy4xLjEuMTcwNzIzODUwNS4wLjAuMA..#geographic-reports-factsheets

https://researchhub.wttc.org/product/artificial-intelligence-ai-in-action-use-cases-impacts-of-ai-in-society-business-and-travel-tourism-2024

28:00 Conclusion and Contact Information

Transcript

Pat: 0:12

hello and welcome to Digital Tourism Insights, a podcast by Digital Relativity. I'm your host, Pat Strader, founder and CEO 20 years of experience in travel and tourism marketing. And I invite you to join me for a quick look at industry trends, research, emerging technologies, and real talk on what works, what doesn't, and why. So grab a coffee, a beer, or a cocktail, there is no judgment here, and let's have some fun with an honest and irreverent look into the nitty gritty of travel and tourism marketing.

0:43

In today's trend segment, we're going to be taking a look at a recent post on net hunt. com titled hot or not email marketing trends in 2024. So let's take a quick look at how privacy AI and more influencing the way that we craft our email campaigns in 2024. Some of the trend highlights, first of all, privacy first. 2024 is seeing heightened focus on data privacy. We've been talking about this for quite some time, but consumers are increasingly wary of how their information is used. So it's crucial as marketers. So we emphasize transparency that consumers have control of that. We honor those things and allow subscribers to tailor their own communication preferences. Hyper personalization is another trend. This is kind of across the board where we continue to talk about personalization. You know, the quote unquote, the one size fits all approach is, is no longer as effective, um, as we all wish it would be because it makes it more work for us, right? And now delivering highly personalized content tailored to that individual's preferences and behaviors. It's going to be the key to continuing to drive engagement and conversions, kind of going hand in hand with this is leveraging AI. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to talk more about AI, but AI is a huge ally here and can tremendously help with enhancing personalization. Optimizing the email content, delivery times, and just in general, streamlining our marketing strategies by embracing AI allows us to connect with our audience more effectively and efficiently with automation, segmentation, et cetera, automated campaigns powered by strategic segmentation ensures that our messages are timely, relevant, and engaging. And again, you know, creating those connections with this one is a little surprising to me because I kind of feel like we're past this mobile first design. And that seems like something that we would have been talking about 10 years ago. But as I think about this more, more often than it should, I feel like that I personally have emails that come through that definitely. Did not have any consideration for mobile first. So really thinking about that. And again, you know, making sure that things are tappable in an interactive are going to be highly important. And along with those lines of interactive emails, engaging your audiences. With interactive elements within those emails is something that is going to be more and more valuable moving forward, really clear and concise. And, you know, moving back to the mobile piece here, tappable, CTAs, polls, things with features such as this to enhance the user engagement and to frankly, just continue to help stand out a bit, you know, accessibility, this kind of goes hand in hand with the mobile first, but making emails accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. It's not just a legal requirement. It's, it's becoming a moral imperative, if you will, but you know, accessible emails are going to, first of all, take care of that mobile first design or should rather, and often results in better overall user experience. So what are some things that we can be going? I would, first of all, audit your email list, make sure that that thing is clean. You know, as the focus moves more towards engagement with subscribers, I think that it's incredibly important to ensure that your email list is very clean and that the content that you're going to be providing to those in your list is relevant, another broken record statement here, but embracing AI and automation, this is going to be something really important. And there's a number of different AI tools, which are very interesting. I'm not going to get into those right now. Just for fear of completely opening a can of worms. There are some very interesting AI tools. We'll help with your email list to ensure that you're delivering the right kind of content at the right time to the right people. And there are some very basic things that are, you know, built into to many of our email platforms. But I think that the augmentation of some of these AI tools that we're going to be able to use with our email campaigns are just really going to help make each of our campaigns and sends much more effective. Continuing on some of the things they're optimizing for mobile and incorporating interactivity and again, prioritizing the accessibility to these emails. So as we kind of look at how we're going to navigate through 2024, the key to successful email marketing and the travel and tourism industry. It lies in embracing these evolving trends and just really paying attention to them. But again, focusing on the privacy, the interactive elements, continuing to find ways to implement and improve personalization. And then leveraging how AI can help us do those things. If we look at these trends and we pay attention to them, we can create more meaningful and effective email campaigns that truly resonate with audience. And remember, our goal is not just to reach our audience, but to connect with them and provide some real value that keeps them engaged and looking forward to their next adventure. In today's Destination Focus, we're diving into the Colors of Carlsbad campaign, a collaboration between Visit Carlsbad and the Pantone Color Institute, which has smartly combined creative elements with data analysis to promote Carlsbad, California, as a must visit destination. At the heart of the Colors of Carlsbad campaign was a 2019 Colors of Travel Study, in which Visit Carlsbad, the Pantone Color Institute, worked with Quantitative Influencer Marketing Platform 4 to analyze thousands of Instagram images from 75 travel influencers, each with more than 50, 000 followers. They narrowed down the photos to the five most engaged Instagram images from each influencer, which were then analyzed to determine the four most common colors that were present. One image per influencer was selected, which was then scanned through Google Cloud Vision to determine the most dominant views. And this is, uh, this is really creative. I love this approach. And so visit Carlsbad and the Pantone color Institute identified four trending colors, the best represented Carlsbad. So this innovative approach highlights Carlsbad's natural beauty and vibrancy by informing and elevating the creative using these hues. The really fun thing about this as well, this was in 2019, 2020, they have actually continued to do this each year. So it's just a really interesting way to keep up with the trends that they're seeing through their data analysis. But the Carlsbad campaign celebrates its unique color palette. Here's some flowery language for y'all. From the warming sunrises and expansive blue skies to the soothing green blue lagoon waters and golden yellow craft beer experiences. These colors are emblematic of Carlsbad's diverse offerings, including its food scene, arts, culture. The wellness scene is very, um, a big component of what they do there in Carlsbad. As well as adventure opportunities. By focusing on these hues, the campaign offers a novel way of promoting the destination, making it stand out to potential visitors. I found this quote in Forbes magazine from Sam Ross, who was then the executive director of Visit Carlsbad. It is a different way of promoting the destination, instead of just using the attributes of the attractions or our great beaches. End quote. So, It's just a really interesting approach to this. And what sets the colors of Carlsbad campaign apart is its use of data analysis to inform creative. While I've been able to locate metrics directly related to this campaign, there's bits and pieces of things out there. I can tell you that while Sam Ross was still serving as the Executive Director at Visit Carlsbad, that Carlsbad had reached the number one ranking in ADR and RevPAR against all other San Diego regions. That's a, just an incredible accomplishment there and I, I feel is proof enough for me to know that this campaign was effective, but I feel that this campaign is more so a great example to get us all thinking about new ways to involve data and the development of our creative. Next up is our tech spotlight today. We're going to take a look at a significant shift on the horizon. The revolutionary updates to Google maps powered by AI promise to redefine how travelers discovered local businesses. So let's take a look at this together by unpacking the highlights and exploring how to navigate new territory within the Google ecosystem. The digital compass that guides our travels has become smarter, more intuitive. That little navigational tool in our pocket is poised for change. Google Maps is at the forefront of this transformation. It is integrating AI to enhance local search in ways that we've never seen before. Imagine a map that doesn't just direct you to your destination, but also suggests personalized experiences based on your interests, past searches, and even your real time context. Recommending a cozy little cafe tucked away in a back alley somewhere, to highlighting local events that match your preferences. seamless and deeply personalized. What is going on here? Well, Google maps is rolling out an AI powered feature to enhance local business search, providing users with personalized recommendations. So we talk about AI personalization, and this is, this is going to be a pretty powerful, this is in beta right now. They're testing this with their. Ambassadors, if you will, the Google Maps power users, but this is utilizing large language models to analyze Google Maps, extensive database. including places, photos, ratings, reviews. Users can input conversational search queries, receive tailored suggestions for businesses, events, restaurants, activities, with the ability to refine searches through follow up questions. This development aims at revolutionizing local discovery by offering ultra personalized recommendations Catering to specific interests and needs and accommodating various situations like weather changes or group preferences. As marketers, how do we prepare for this wave of change? Well, first of all, it's about understanding the power of data and personalization. And as AI thrives on information, so ensuring that your business's digital footprint is built out and accurate across Google's platforms and beyond. It's paramount to the implications of overlooking this critical step should be really profound. You've heard this before. You've heard this from me before if you've seen me speak about Google and local listings in particular. But with AI powered search, the visibility of local attractions, hotels, restaurants, the experiences can truly skyrocket. It's about being at the right place and the digital map at the right time. So how do we ensure destinations and businesses stand out? It's all about leveraging these technologies through optimized listings, engaging content, leveraging user reviews and interactions to boost visibility and appeal. This is nothing earth shattering or new, but the implications of not doing this become much greater. As this AI and local search begins to roll out to the general public, to the masses. So what are some practical tips for marketers? First of all, stop me if you've heard this before. Optimize your listings. Go to your Google My Business profile and make sure your information is complete. Ensure that it's accurate and, and update it regularly using rich descriptions, high quality images. Current operating hours is incredibly important and can significantly enhance your visibility. So if you haven't already done that, go, go do it right now. Don't walk, run. Also embrace reviews and engagements. I don't want to hear it anymore. It's like, Oh, somebody that's just mad about this, that, and the other. There's lots of ways to mitigate. unfounded reviews, but just by putting your head in the sand, you're not going to be successful. So encourage your customers to leave reviews, engage with these reviews promptly and personally get in there in response. AI algorithms are going to favor this. And businesses that show high levels of engagement and positive feedback are going to be rewarded. Utilize your keywords wisely. Incorporate those relevant keywords into your business listings and responses to reviews. And I think that this can also help AI just understand more about your business. And make it more likely to recommend your services to users with matching interests. And then lastly, just stay informed and adapt. AI landscape is moving so fast, it's not even funny. But just by keeping abreast of just the basic changes is one thing. And keeping up to date with Google Maps and other AI driven platforms. Google Maps is just one of them. So be ready to adapt your strategies to leverage these technologies. And more than just Google, but this one is at the forefront. So as we stand on the brink of this new era of AI powered travel, the journey ahead for travel and tourism marketers, it's exciting. It's also challenging, but by embracing the AI and the personalization opportunities that it brings, uh, we can offer travelers, not just destinations, but experiences that resonate on a personal level. This is incredibly important and will continue to be even more fun. This will move forward with AI truly providing opportunities to personalize experience of contents. This is not just about being found. It's about being discovered as a destination or an attraction that offers something truly unique and memorable or simply fits the bill for what the traveler needs at any given moment. So as we wrap up today's episode, I'm excited about the immense potential that AI powered local search holds for our industry, and it's a reminder that in the heart of every traveler, there is that innate desire for discovery with the right tools and strategies, we can do our best to make our individual businesses. And attractions more fun. Now it's time for the research roundup. Today we're going to be taking a slightly different approach to this and that this research that we're going to be covering today is from the World Travel and Tourism Council. And it focuses on the role of artificial intelligence in the travel and tourism industry. I want you to bear with me through this segment and here's why what we're about to talk about is, is pure AI integration into the way that businesses. I think it's important to delineate generative AI, you know, when we think about, well, how can I use chat GPT to create X, Y, and Z? And things of that nature. So it's two different approaches or concepts rather with AI. And I'd like to go through this with you and just make some highlights on some of the things that are the findings that are part of the study and. Hopefully to get you thinking conceptually and down the road about how AI may be able to integrate within your organization, organizations, within your member organizations, however the case may be. But just again, thinking down the road, thinking about this a bit longer term, and then we're going to circle back to some of the generative stuff and just some ways to get started. In this study, World Travel and Tourism Council. They state the obvious, AI is no longer a distant future concept, right? It's here and it's transforming the travel and tourism industry. So in this it's AI driven wayfinding apps, hotel concierge services, booking engines, you know, again, this is thinking about AI and streamlining operations, improving customer experiences, optimizing pricing strategies. Enhancing decision making and so forth. And what we've seen in the travel and tourism industry, especially emerging from COVID 19 is that the travel industry has shown tremendous resilience. The landscape's always changing and working within new trends and environmental considerations, altering the nature of travel in general. And to be successful in this environment and to win customer loyalty, companies need to embrace the power of data and AI. AI makes it possible to capitalize on the data, creating extraordinary personalized customer experiences, optimized efficiency, minimized costs, et cetera, et cetera. So this is the urgency of AI adoption is another piece that they discuss in this study. And the AI transformation is happening faster than the previous digital transformation. You know, we look back at like the The dawn of mobile devices or going back to, you know, the internet becoming pro AI transformation is happening faster, about 16 months faster. According to this study, it shows a clear sense of urgency for the travel and tourism sector to not get left behind Frank, this incredibly fast moving revolution. There's no other way to describe this. The travel sector is currently lagging behind the majority of other consumer facing industry sectors in the adoption and the implementation of AI. And so there is, they cite a number of different reasons in this study, including a shortage of AI skilled workers, limited AI infrastructure, data networks, such as, you know, and they make a couple of different recommendations. A few things here that I think stand out driving intentional AI, okay. Including AI implementation from your stakeholders, all of the folks within your organizations. This particular case, we're looking at big travel and tourism organizations here and they advise. C suite, BIA, et cetera, et cetera, and in making AI a strategic priority at the highest level of your organization. So even for those of us that are small organizations, this needs to start at the top. And also, you know, they really talk about tuning out data noise. And this is something that I think a lot of folks are going to be thinking about more and more. But just that business critical data and, you know, a lot of folks have struggled to really kind of gather this and make sense of it and store it and all those different types of things and making actionable they also advise to treat AI as a team sport. Embedding multidisciplinary teams throughout your organization. Data scientists, training specialists, communications professionals. All of these folks working together to drive AI adoption in all relevant business units. I think this is geared towards, you know, some very large organizations, but think about how you can do that no matter what your size. Not only generating buy in with AI, but getting everybody involved. So despite the current challenges, the future of AI travel and tourism is bright. Obviously there's a huge opportunity for companies embracing AI and with the travel industry having the fourth lowest level of AI maturity, according to the study lagging behind most other consumer facing industries, uh, this indicates just a massive opportunity for growth. One of the recommendations that they make, and again, I'm going to, I'm going to go through this with you and then I'm going to distill it. Some of the examples that they give are, are going to be challenging for some of us to think about and apply for a number of different reasons. One, these are, these are straight up AI, not, you know, I think a lot of folks, again, kind of confused the differences between generative and non generative AI. And in this particular case, they cite a couple. Examples, one where Microsoft and American Airlines were utilizing AI to save time on how long airplanes were sitting on the runway. That's an example. Google was working with American Airlines to mitigate the climate impact of contrails. And a third example here is IBM working with Lufthansa to help scape. So, you know, these, these are great examples and I highly encourage you to go and take a look at these, cause there's a lot of really interesting information. And again, hopefully it inspires us to think about some ways that we can utilize these types of things in our organizations, but let's just be honest for the majority of us, these are not necessarily applicable and. And one of the things that I find interesting here too, is that one of the suggestions in this study for, you know, AI adoption within your organization, and again, I'm going to read this to you and then I'm going to give you a starting for folks like us. Champion AI as a strategic priority for the entire organization with full sponsorship from leadership. Okay, we can all do that. Doesn't matter how big we are. This is something that needs to be a top down initiative within all of our organizations. Invest heavily in talent to get more from AI investments. Well, this, this becomes challenging, right? Especially for some of us that, you know, our offices might only have two of us. So CVB of one or two, uh, it's really not feasible. And then industrialize AI tools and teams to create an AI core. Oh boy. Boy, that sounds really complicated and difficult, right? Uh, and I'm going to give you a starting point here in just a minute that will replace this. And then number four, they say design AI responsibly from the start. Well, no, there's a couple of ways that you can look at this. And, and that would be, I think probably their intent here is like how to develop like AI and language models and things like that. I'm going to distill this down and simply say, rethink design, AI responsibly. And, and rethink of it as implementation of AI in a responsible way. So having internal policies and determinations about how, when, and where you're going to use AI. Prioritize long and short term investments, you know, this is another one where you're going to be looking at tools. And really just paying attention to how the tools might be able to help your organization as a whole. So developing use cases. So not just willy nilly trying new tools, but trying new tools with a very specific purpose in the use case of what it is that you're trying to accomplish. I'm going to, again, just kind of pull back from this here and, and just kind of thinking about organizations. And there's a couple of. Foundational things that need to be done one, understanding how AI can help your organization. Where, where ways that you can become more efficient through automation, using those things that you discover in that little process and developing use cases are specific for. I want to save time writing emails, for example. And then locating, researching tools that might be able to help you with that. And then try really putting them in place and make a concerted effort to do so. But I'm going to take an even further step back. Just start somewhere, start some, go create. A chat GPT account, go create perplexity, AI accounts, Gemini, formerly known as Bard, and probably going to change again, go just start using some of these tools, asking them questions. I will say this, you're going to get a lot more value out of the paid versions than you are out of the free versions. And it's just the truth. So before you make it a judgment on say chat GPT three, I would maybe invest 20 a month to try out the newest turbo version, as well as, you know, all the different types of integrations that go in there, but just getting started with one of these tools, simply asking it questions, keeping a tab open in your browser. And, and making use of it, just learning a bit how to do it. Now the prompting, you know, is something that is a learned skill and you'll learn it to be more detailed, but the more explicit that you can be when you begin prompting just to get yourself started, the better off you are going to be. And the more that you'll learn, that is a whole nother topic, prompting and so forth. But I really just wanted to talk. This particular study, share with you some of these just really big picture types of things. Distill it down just a little bit so it becomes a little bit more approachable to those of us that are not American Airlines, United Airlines, Lufthansa, etc. That have these massive, massive R& D budgets and huge staff, technologists and those that can help implement it. Because the truth is that we've all got to figure this out on our own, and we've got to start somewhere and it is not going away.

Pat: 28:00

that's all for today's episode. I hope that you found one small piece of information to help you along your marketing journey. If you have any questions over a topic that you'd like to hear covered or a great example of travel and tourism marketing in the wild, I'd love to hear from you. Just drop me an email, tti at digital relativity. com. That's tti at digital relativity. com. You can text 209 300 5017. That's 209 300 5017. Or message me on X at Pat Strader. I'm your host, Pat Strader, signing off, and I invite you to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and join us next time as we continue to explore the future of travel and tourism marketing.