Travel Trends with Dan Christian

The Impact of AI on Destination Marketing featuring Brand USA

• Dan Christian

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We're so fascinated on how Destination Marketing is being transformed by AI that we partnered with Mindtrip to bring together this 3-part mini series.  We have an incredible line-up of speakers joining us in advance of our AI Summit to exploring how AI is transforming the way travelers dream, plan, and book their journeys.

In our first episode, we sit down with Janette Roush, SVP of Innovation & Chief AI Officer at Brand USA, to talk about how destination marketing is evolving as trip planning moves from search boxes to chat interfaces and AI-generated itineraries.

Janette shares how Brand USA is reimagining engagement - from building smarter, more conversational tools that inspire travel to creating frameworks that help DMOs and industry partners use AI responsibly and effectively. We discuss what it means to shift focus from clicks to intent, how automation can free teams to focus on creativity, and why data quality matters more than ever.

Janette is one of the sharpest minds in this space and is the perfect guest to kick off this series with.  We will have 2 more episodes ready to released each Thursday which will feature Lynn Carpenter, the SVP of Global Marketing for Visit California and Discover Puerto Rico CMO Storm Tussey. We will also be joined by Mindtrip's CMO Michelle Denogean in our final episode to talk about where this technology is heading.   We hope you really enjoy this series. Don't forget to register to join our AI Summit to listen to these leaders directly.

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SPEAKER_01:

I think your listeners should be paying attention to Model Context Protocol, MCP. Uh, I think, I mean, this this is me just making a bet on this, so you know, I crystal ball stuff. But model context protocol is going to give us the opportunity to imbue our personal AI with facts, with truth. And I think that's going to be a huge game changer in the world of travel.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone, and welcome to Travel Trends. This is your host, Dan Christian, and we're about to begin a special three-part series exploring the impact of AI on destination marketing. I was really keen to bring this series together because we have not focused on destination marketing in our entire history of travel trends, all six seasons. We've never dived into one of the most important topics in travel and specifically how AI, which I think all of our listeners know, especially given that we're running the AI Summit again this year, and we're actually going to feature the guests from this series at our AI Summit coming up in a few weeks' time. So I was very keen to look at the cross-section of DMOs or destination management organizations as they're known and the impact of AI. And we found the perfect partner to bring this series together with, and that is our friends over at Mind Trip who believe that travel is at its best when local expertise meets the power of AI. So we partnered with the team at Mind Trip to bring together these three insightful conversations with some of the industry's leading voices. And in our third episode, at the end, you're going to hear a bonus discussion with Michelle, who is the CMO of Mindtrip. And I was the one that wanted Michelle to join the conversation to share her perspective after you listen to these three amazing individuals and understand where technology is taking travel marketing next. Now, in today's episode, episode one, we're going to be joined by Jeanette Roush, who is the chief AI officer at Brand USA. I recently had the chance to share the stage with Jeanette at the Arrival AI Forum in Washington. And I can tell you she's one of the sharpest minds in this space. And you're going to learn that for yourself in today's conversation. She has a deep insight into how AI is already reshaping the way that destinations connect with travelers. And she's the perfect guest to kick this series off. But we also have two additional special guests over the next two weeks as we release these episodes each Thursday. And next Thursday, you're going to hear from Lynn Carpenter, the VP of Global Marketing at Visit California. And then we're going to be joined by Storm Tussey, the CMO at Discover Puerto Rico. So this is going to be an amazing three-part series. Make sure you're subscribed on the streaming platform of your choice to be notified when new episodes go live, as each episode is going to explore how destination marketers are adapting in an AI-driven world and how you can apply these lessons as the traveler journey keeps evolving, given these new planning tools and greater personalization. So on that note, let's bring in our very first guet, Jeanette Rausch from Brand USA. Jeanette, thanks so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Dan. I'm thrilled to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm thrilled that you are our very first guest on this series in partnership with Mind Trip to talk about how AI is transforming the world of destination marketing and the impact it's having. And obviously, your role as the chief AI officer as well as the senior vice president of innovation at Brand USA couldn't be more relevant to this topic. So I've got lots of questions for you. But tell all of our listeners where you are first. I think you're in the beautiful city of New York.

SPEAKER_01:

I am. I'm in Harlem, USA, uh in my living room.

SPEAKER_00:

Ah, fantastic. That's great. And I obviously, for all of our listeners, you can see clips and highlights on our social channels. So we'll post a number of clips and highlights from our conversation with Jeanette. But wherever you're listening to this, obviously the uh the session itself is is audio, but the highlights are on our social channels. And you can see the really cool background she has because I first said to Jeanette, like, the offices look amazing at Brand USA. And she's like, nope, this is this is my uh my apartment in Harlem.

SPEAKER_01:

We got we got the pot out on the kitchen counter back there because I'm a Missouri girl at heart.

SPEAKER_00:

That's awesome. Well, that's what I was gonna ask. You're not from New York, so no, I'm from Casey. You have yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about your background. Obviously, we know each other, but I want all of our listeners to understand your your background in the travel industry and ultimately how you decided to take on this role and embrace AI.

SPEAKER_01:

Great. Well, my background is really not as a technologist. I was a theater major. So I moved to New York City after college because I was getting my MFA in theater administration and you know, fell in love with New York City as a part of that. And the jobs that I got in theater actually ended up being in theater and tourism. So I worked for a company, a small company owned by Mac Cameron McIntosh that was acquired by Broadway.com in 2000. And so the like my role was marketing and selling FIT and group tickets to Broadway shows to international travelers. Uh so I did that for eight years. I then moved deeper into the advertising world for Broadway. So spent uh eight years at a Broadway ad agency where I oversaw the insights team. So making that connection between what tickets are being sold and then like for how much money, which part of house, how is media impacting that? And again, because I was a theater major, a lot of this was very self-taught. Just my team and I, driven by the curiosity of what what impacts, you know, actually affect the sales of these tickets. Right. So I then uh in 2018, yes, in 2018, I joined New York City Tourism. Uh and ultimately I was their EVP of marketing and digital. And that evolved into, you know, think back to 2022 with the onset of Chat GPT. My brother texted me with a link to it the day that it came out. And I just it blew my mind. I saw that, I was like, because there were, you know, there's lots of tech stuff all the time. Like I didn't feel this way about NFTs or cryptocurrency necessarily, but I was completely obsessed with Chat GPT in part because I saw immediately, if it had been available 10 years earlier when I was running this insights team, it would have absolutely changed the way that I approached that job. So all of the stuff that I was trying to learn how to do, like I was trying to learn Python so that it'd be easier to get the sales figures into Excel. Well, now I like it would be instantaneous. So it's almost out of jealousy and bitterness. I was like, Well, how can I use it for the job I have today? Since I can't use it for this job that I haven't had in a long time. And it turned into all of December 22, just trying to figure out who who was on top of this, who online was writing about and using this new thing. And I wasn't finding as much content as I wanted. So when January came around, I said, you know, I'm going to test this once a day on something new at work every single day. And then I'm going to share anything that I learn on LinkedIn. And by the end of the month, I had a good working knowledge of how the tool worked at that time. And I had uh two speaking opportunities. And really, that was it. I just leaned into it really hard. I found it incredibly valuable in my role in New York City. And so when this job was posted at Brand USA, uh, it felt like a really natural fit.

SPEAKER_00:

Very cool. Well, I love getting a backstory, especially knowing that your, you know, your MFA theater, like this, the world of storytelling, which becomes incredibly relevant with using tools like AI to be able to create video content. And like, as you well know, as an expert now in this space, generative AI, it's an explosion of content. And a lot of companies are trying to figure out how to use it. And ultimately it comes back to what is the purpose and what is it you're trying to create for on behalf of your brand? So I've got so many questions for you, but I think it's also really cool for our listeners, not only to hear that you know, you're based in New York and you've got this deep understanding of that city, which is, you know, one of the most visited uh tourism centers in all of the world. So you have the background with New York City, you've been there for nearly 20 years, and then of course you've joined brand USA in the last year, and there's been so much change of brand USA. I mean, from budget changes, geopolitical factors, so many things going on. And so your role at this time couldn't be more relevant to brand USA. Obviously, to have someone in your capacity is really important. I think that's where I'm keen to have this conversation with you now, and I'm sure a lot of people will be inspired by this because many other organizations don't have someone in a role like yours, and they're quickly realizing that they need to. So let's talk about that for a moment. So, with brand USA being one of the first tourism boards to appoint a chief AI officer, what prompted that move and and how does that work with also you doing the innovation side of it?

SPEAKER_01:

So the way that it works for brand USA, I think what prompted Fred to do this is part of you know, Fred Dixon, our uh president and CEO, uh was our president and CEO at New York City Tourism. So I knew Fred even back from his Nashville days, you know, in the late 90s. So we've we've been friends for a long time. So, you know, clearly he hears me talk about hey hi at New York City tourism, he doesn't delete that from his brain when he goes to brand USA. Uh and it's just you it was a great opportunity for him at a moment when he gets to define the role of this organization, just to acknowledge that AI is going to have a huge impact on the work of tourism professionals. And I think it's going to have an enormous impact on DMOs. And I couldn't be more grateful that he like shares this vision for what's possible. And the work that now we're trying to do at Brand USA with AI falls into three tranches. So it's operational excellence, you know, taking advantage of me being there and having this knowledge of AI to bringing the staff like up to speed as individual contributors, and then dive into departmental workflows. So really defining how does an organization that has existed, you know, since 2011, how do you come in and rethink it with that lens? The second tranche is industry empowerment. So because as you said, there aren't other DMOs that have this opportunity to have a chief AI officer right now. So how can our learnings help the entire industry? And then the third tranche is how does this work that we're doing actually drive international inbound tourism? So, how can AI make the United States more discoverable and more bookable, whether it's a B2B, you know, meeting side, uh leisure side, or if it's a consumer.

SPEAKER_00:

Very interesting. And obviously, the inspiration, of course, for you, as you were highlighting when ChatGPT and the explosion of Gen AI Tools came about, obviously you were fascinated by this. And I think one of the things that also stands out to me in your background and is that you're a non-technical founder in your role. And I think that's important for our listeners to, and I've listened to you give a number of other talks. You're obviously a great speaker, and you know, so I one of the many reasons I'm thrilled to have you as part of this. And I know you'll be part of our AI summit too later this year, but this because you've got so much to offer on this topic, but it's very interesting that you have a non-technical background. So I just wanted to go back to that for a moment to all of our listeners. If you could share a little bit more about your role. I mean, obviously, you talked about the three tranches, so I think you've covered um uh certainly the areas that you're focusing on, but just to understand a bit more of like what the role is for a chief AI officer, and then specifically what inspired you to make that transition.

SPEAKER_01:

So the work then comes down to what are the ways that I can move each of those three tranches forward. So, like literally at brand USA, that would mean sitting down with our three-person human resources team, mapping out what does your workflow look like. Like if you think about human resources, and it and this is really a departmental process, I think, when we're looking at AI implementation, because our HR team is going to have more in common with other HR teams and how they apply AI versus you know our marketing team. So it's about sitting down and saying, What is what is the work of HR? Well, you you know, you're recruiting new staff, you're helping to manage uh payroll, you're helping to manage uh benefits. Like there's like seven or eight broad areas, none of which have anything to do with each other, right? So it's possible to be great at three of the areas and you know, need support on the other four areas. So you want to take each of those areas and then just literally look at what are the tasks involved in recruiting? What are the tasks involved in managing retirement benefits and seeing which of those tasks do you hate the most and you would like to find ways to make easier and is can AI help with that yet?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, it's interesting about your role, and I think a lot of our listeners know my background being digital technology marketing, but specifically a chief digital officer, which in many ways, you know, now we have the chief AI officer. And so yeah, you're a great example of that where you need to figure out how this technology applies across the business. So we've been on this 20-year journey of digital transformation ever since the dot-com boom, and that's sort of when I came into the travel industry. So I have that background and understanding. And I am, like you, that much more motivated and excited with this next wave of AI and where we're headed. So, one thing I always want to do with our listeners, especially as we think about destination marketing and uh DMOs as they're called, and to demystify that for any of our listeners, whenever we use that term, it's destination management organization. Uh, but when we think about destination marketing, one of the things I'm keen to understand from your perspective is how AI has been utilized so far, and then where you see us currently in 2025. Obviously, we'll get into what's ahead. Um, but I'd love to hear about the early adoption because, again, for me, this is fascinating because there's so many different utilizations of this technology and having someone like you work with all the different departments. And interestingly, uh, the head of technology over at TUI, uh, as I was, he gave one of the best presentations I thought at the ITB Berlin conference earlier this year. And he talked about the fact that as an organization, they are essentially they have their own LLM internally that everyone interacts with. And so they've built their own custom LLM that has all their proprietary data. But then literally their team works with different departments in the business to try and figure out where the pain points are and how can we use AI to solve them. And I love that because it's very similar to what I was doing with digital. So tell us a little bit about where you think we've gotten to with AI in destination marketing and where we stand as of having this conversation.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh so I have a good viewpoint, I think, a good vantage point on how DMOs are using AI today, because I'm part of a group called uh uh if you know GroupNow out of Copenhagen, they have a program called AI Opener for Destinations that I've been an expert advisor for for the last two years. And then there's a US cohort of that that is run by Miles Partnership. So I get to listen to DMOs across Canada, the United States, and across Europe once a month to talk about how they're like literally talk about how they're using AI and what are new ways to apply it and what are we not thinking about. And I think this kind of work is so important because open AI, they don't care how we use it. They're they're not going to create some kind of guide for DMOs on incorporating AI into your work. So we have to do it. That's that's on us. And it's early days still. So for anybody listening who thinks, oh goodness, I'm I haven't started anything yet. I don't have an AI policy for my organization yet. We're still using BYO AI or shadow AI. Like the people who are in that spot, they're not behind yet. Like that is that is probably the vast majority of DMOs right now. That it's still individual use cases, the people who find it interesting, diving in using their own tools, whether they're free or they're personal paid tools, just to explore what works and what doesn't work, the the way that I did when I was in New York City. So we're now at the point, and I think this has like started happening throughout 2025, where DMOs are now starting to put policies into place so that the staff feels more comfortable using AI. Uh they're starting to provide paid secure tools to their staff so that anything that you put into Chat GPT doesn't become part of the underlying knowledge of the language model when they do their next training run. But in terms of like beyond that, I think there's you know certain DMOs that are doing incredible work, like Kara Franker, who's now with the Florida Keys, when she was uh at Estes Park, the entire team they said we're going to be AI first, and they instituted a chat bot on their website. They worked with uh Intentful to create a content generation platform that they were using on the back end for their blogs and for their websites. Like they put systems in place. They made sure that once a month everybody was required or once a week the staff was required to give a report on how they had used AI throughout the week. So like she went full in. I think where most folks are is probably at that individual use case place, and they are thinking about how can a department take advantage of that. So it's it's still very early days.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's interesting. So saying it, as you just pointed out, it's very early days, and I think that's where there's a lot of hype around AI and its potential. And we've been living through that hype cycle now for the better part of 18 months, and there continues to be headlines that dominate that I think intimidate people and often can cause more concern and confusion than it is about realizing opportunity. So, one of the things I want to make sure that we do in our discussion, as I'm sure you appreciate too, is like actually giving some real examples of how AI is being utilized. And that's certainly the theme for our AI summit. And I know you're part of the AI forum as well, that arrival is taking place in Washington, D.C. So, depending on when you're listening to that, that's happening on uh September 30th. And then you have the AI Summit uh uh, which is virtual on October 28th and 29th. Um, and the focus is going to be showcasing tools. So let's talk about AmericaThebeautiful.com. Um, many of our listeners are multitasking when they're listening to our podcast and always ask for mention the website to make sure I can I get text messages and emails that like perfect. There you go. America the Beautiful, pull that up. And uh I would love for you to just tell us a little bit about the purpose of that site and how you've started to use AI. I know you guys work with Mind Trip and I've seen some of the integrations, and obviously I know that business really well. I love the team, I love the business, and I think it's really exciting that they have expanded from just B2C and to B2B and working with destination management organizations. So tell us a little bit about that website and then how you've decided to embrace AI for a better user experience.

SPEAKER_01:

So the website is a way of us expressing a new campaign online. So Leah Chandler, our chief marketing officer, joined the organization in March and immediately set to work with our agency partners to figure out in this moment what is the correct message for the United States to use to for international tourism promotion. And as part of that process, when they landed on the America the Beautiful campaign, if you look at uh some of our other websites, our consumer website is visitheusa.com. And it's like kind of at that point, you know, in a website's life cycle where you're thinking about the next thing. And so the team decided rather than try to retrofit Visit the USA to be a platform to showcase this new campaign, that they would create a standalone website to do that. But this was all determined, yeah, about six weeks maybe before IPW, which is you know the large trade show where we wanted to launch the campaign. So that would be a really short turnaround. I mean, it was it was an incredibly quick turnaround to build an entire website. But it would have been a much bigger job if like creating all of that content to fill in the website to make it a really robust experience. So the you know, decision was made that rather than try to literally create every single word of content that would be needed to bring the campaign to life, that this would be a good opportunity to think about the other changes that are happening in the universe. And a big change that's happening is we're all seeing less traffic to our websites because AI overviews or answers given inside of LLMs are now replacing my need to go to Google, do a search, and then click through to the website to find the answer. So we knew like websites have a little different job that they need to do today. And I think expectations of how people behave online is also changing. So we already see it in Google search. Though, you know, previously Google search, it would be perfectly normal to type in, you know, top 10 things near me. But that's not how humans actually talk. That's just something we learn to do through Google. And now we're unlearning that. So in Google, like search queries are getting longer. And they're getting longer because people are learning and because of those AI overviews, you get a better answer when you put in more words, when you give it more context. So it's starting to feel a little old-fashioned almost to expect somebody to come to your website and then have an experience in the way you tell them that they have to have the experience. I think we're moving to an area where we need to focus more on giving the consumer the keys to the car. And so that's what we have done with the mind trip integration throughout AmericaTheBeautiful.com is that throughout the website, and I really love how it's been integrated on the website as well. So consumers have the opportunity to come to this landing page. And then so there's content throughout it, we're showcasing big events happening in the United States next year. But there's also prompts filtered throughout the website so that rather than clicking on, you know, a little thing in the corner that says, Don't you want to chat with us? Like, no, it's the answer to that question is always no. But if you have questions embedded throughout the site that pique someone's interest and shows them like the way to enter into this AI experience, that's proving really successful.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. And just to demystify this too, for many of our listeners, and I always uh my mom uh loves this podcast, and she only because she's my mom and she's one of our biggest fans, and she always says, What's an OTA? Or she would say, What would be a DMO? like that. So I always try and bring all of our listeners along the journey. We've got a global audience in 125 countries. And I just wanted to highlight, because I'm based in Canada, you're in the US, and some of the terms the IPW, just like that's a great example. I just want to highlight to our listeners what was happening there and why it's so important and relevant to what you just described. So IPW, fun fact, stands for International Pow Wow. And it is put on by US Travel Association, which is a nonprofit, and brand USA is a sponsor of that. And this uh trade show is really it was in Chicago this year in June in 2025. It'll be in um it'll be in uh Fort Lauderdale.

SPEAKER_01:

Fort Lauderdale next year in May. May next year.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and there's thousands of people that come together, suppliers, media, and the whole focus is increasing international visitation to the United States. So the obviously that's why you've got to be there and have to be ready with a new website because this is how you market it. And this is where like I'm you know, I'm fascinated with this conversation because trying to work out exactly how to do that in 2025 and going into 2026, tools like this, especially as um budgets are reduced and there's various other challenges, it's all the more important to be able to find tools like um that AI offers to be able to be lean, efficient, and be able to create amazing content. Um so so yeah, so I just want to bring everyone along on the journey, but I also want to get into that content creation that you have done and how brand USA is leveraging that to create something that is more uh culturally relevant and more localized and much more engaging. So tell us a little bit about that integration with Mind Trip that obviously you guys got together fairly quickly for the event and how it's being utilized. Like you mentioned things like the chat bots and like so how are you seeing people interact with the website now that you have this new AI-driven content?

SPEAKER_01:

So it's super early days. We're actually we haven't even started paid media on the America the Beautiful campaign yet. So so it's still like whoever is stumbling upon it organically, and we know that organic traffic is not great anymore. Uh and then I think we have some traffic that we're driving from the Visit the USA site that's going there right now. So it it's a soft launch that is then giving us the opportunity to say, great, now we can build out you know the back end so that we're able to collect insights from all of these chats. Uh in terms of the content creation for the site, the way that Mind Trip works is that it's an itinerary builder. So there are prompts throughout the site that will say, Oh, you know, learn more about arts in the United States. And if you click that button, then we have a slider that opens with the Mind Trip interface, which has a map on one side, and then it has, you know, a chat where window where you're able to have a conversation with it on the other side. And that's giving the opportunity, you know, for people like Mind Trip is pulling from our website, from their own proprietary data sources, uh, in order to create what the answers are to user queries and then to populate a map with an actual itinerary of what this user's trip could look like to the United States. So they that type of content, it's all automatically generated through Mind Trip's proprietary systems and their partnership with OpenAI, which powers the language model inside of Mindtrip. Uh and then we have static content on the website as well. And so much of that, you know, we work on with our partners at Miles Partnership. Uh that's one of the services that they provide to us. And I I was like, oh, I wonder how Miles, like, where what is the role of AI in that type of content creation? I think that's a really interesting like conversation to have because we should all be very aware of what our vendors are doing when it comes to AI. We may have, as a DMO, we can have our own AI policies, but if your vendors don't have similar policies, then how are you enforcing yours with them? Uh but it, you know, Miles, I already work with them very closely on the AI front, and they have you know very clear AI guidelines. And so they're not using AI to write content, but in terms of tweaking, editing, ideation, which is similar to how I use it with content creation as well.

SPEAKER_00:

That's really interesting. And I do have one more question on this, and I know we're gonna we're gonna expand to talk about some of the challenges and even the ethical considerations of using AI. I want to get your take on that and where we're headed. So future trends and innovation. Uh but on this particular example with the integration you've done with Mind Trip, one of the things I was really keen to understand is that going back to working on digital transformation, the key is always trying to make sure that you're meeting the customer where they are. So the big shift that happened, of course, was people moved to social channels. So you needed to make sure your brand was relevant on social channels and your brand had to become conversational, and that was a big shift. Shift for organizations to make. One of the things that you've certainly seen as well, as far as where customers are at today, they are embracing AI for trip planning on a massive scale. So, like, no matter how what stat you look at, whether it's you know 50 plus or even uh millennials, like the stats are at least 50%, if not 80 or 90% of people are using it to plan their trip. So they're using AI tools. What we've not seen yet, which is still coming, is more people actually then booking and actually fulfilling the whole trip. But certainly for planning. So if you think, and again, this is your more your space than mine, but I know it from working with so many tour operators, putting itineraries together, you're always looking at the data on your website to see what itineraries are the most popular. And you can only glean so much information, at least from where quote requests were coming in or brochure requests and what uh specific itineraries people were looking at. And clearly, when you are a destination management organization, you are trying to promote the destination and trying to make sure that you help play and assist in ultimately getting someone to book that trip. But really, you're trying to inspire people on the destination. And the most important thing is to hook people with uh sample itineraries. So I know you know that a lot of the DMO websites had these examples of things you could do, like go explore the the Wild West or um like road trip suggestions. And and this is where a tool like Mind Trip or being able to have these AI tools that you can actually have a trip planner, because that's literally where consumers are today. They want to use tools like this to plan trips. So it means for me, it seems like a natural extension to have the partnership with Mindtrip and to be able to have this technology. But the specific question I have for you on this is that how does it actually impact your decision making? Because I'm assuming you actually then have access to more information that will help inform marketing campaigns and where you should essentially be planning, to your point about you know, paid media is only about to start, but you've probably got some good learnings already about how people are using the tool and what destinations are looking at, which may be different than the ones you might have actually been ready to promote because you're seeing there's an uptick in interest in certain regions of the country. So, yeah, tell us a little bit more about the data that you get from this.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, like that that's the reason to do this, right? Like the customer journey is incredibly important, but to be greedy and selfish, we want this first party data. And when you see less traffic coming to websites, and you know, I think because I came from this world of, you know, like the city DMOs, where you're reporting to your board on a regular basis probably what your website KPIs are. And probably for the last 18 months or two years, every single month or every single quarter, the story is a little bit worse. And we're getting a little bit less information because we're seeing less traffic. And for the traffic that we're seeing, you know, through GDPR or other, you know, restrictions, we're getting less information about the travelers that are visiting our websites. So for me, this mind trip integration helps you reverse that trend because now you get this incredibly rich look at not only all of the chat data. So what are people literally asking and talking about in the chats, that you're able to collect the POIs and the destinations that they're talking about and asking questions about. So that like for us, we're hoping that this becomes a really rich, you know, ability to report back to our partners, you know, who's looking at your destination and what questions do they have. And I think, you know, what will be really interesting is looking at those those mid-funnel questions. Uh, and that is a big use case for AI, to my understanding, is under it's understand particularly for comparisons. And there's not a lot of content online that would compare two hotels or two destinations. So it it creates this rich ecosystem where you're able to go into you can they there's a dashboard in the log in the mind trip system that allows you to read every single chat, look at these POIs. We can take this data and actually put it into our own data warehouse. And that's what we're in the middle of doing right now is cleaning up that information, figuring out what are people doing with this on the website? Because what we want to understand in the future is are people staying on the website longer because they're engaging with AI? Are they reading more pages? Are they are they having long conversations? And so learning these new KPIs and what can actually be connected to a traveler moving down that funnel towards actually going on the trip? Like that's that's a view that's very hard for a DMO to get.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's you you inspired me there. And that you brought up something that I think would be quite interesting to our listeners. And then I'll come back to some of those other big questions I want to ask you, and we can do kind of a rapid fire uh list through them because I'm sure other people will say, how come you didn't ask Jeanette about uh data security or ethical use or uh sustainability? Those are I mean, I did a keynote on AI at the ETC conference. Many of our listeners have watched this on YouTube, and um we didn't include the questions afterwards uh because it went on for a while and it was like trying to figure out how much we would include, but it was questions on those topics about what is the ethical use of AI and what does it mean for the environment given the cost. So I do want to hit those, but on this specific topic, I'm really keen to get your take on the broader impact and the vision for AI. So, and especially on the traveler journey, as you just pointed out. So you started uh highlighting how it is impacting the customer journey, like for inspiration to planning, even that booking and post-trip engagement, which is obviously the next piece of it, like the full circle. And so I genuinely keen to know how brand USA, now that you're taking a leadership position on this, how do you work with other destinations across the country so that they actually can understand uh and as you take a leadership position with this, how it's being utilized and what they should embrace? And ultimately, I'm also just keen to know how you see it moving towards impacting booking and post-trip engagement. For example, like, is there the opportunity for suppliers to work with you to be one of the options that gets listed and they book with? I realize that that's a challenging one because you have to be pretty agnostic when it comes to who you promote. Um, but I'd love to see how what your thinking is or how you might approach the booking and post-trip engagement, because obviously you have to hand that over somewhere. So um, how do you see that playing out?

SPEAKER_01:

It's you know, it's a it's an ongoing conversation, I think, with all DMOs. Like it was a huge conversation at New York City. What you know, do you want to include the booking process on your site or not? And it's a real challenge, and it's particularly for us because we work with so many B2B travel partners that you don't necessarily want to cut them out of the loop by working with the consumers directly. So, like right now, we don't have actual conversions and bookings enabled on the mind trip system on brandusa.com or on AmericaTheBeautiful.com. But uh, you know, like at the same and you know, the the other side of the coin is everybody is looking at their funding sources and are there opportunities for new funding sources? And that's I it's it's a constant conversation because you're able to work with these platforms in order to say, great, we want to route all of the the transactions or the bookings through X platform or through X OTA, and that can be set up. But then you have to determine, well, how agnostic does your organization need to be? And how do you need to keep the the B2B piece of this in the loop? So I I don't have an answer on that yet. It's it's something we talk about weekly.

SPEAKER_00:

For sure. It's a what it's a watch this space, and it just kind of highlights to all of our listeners as well. This is where we find ourselves, and it's like the the next chapter is only just being written. And that's genuinely I find so exciting about it because it's, you know, and and this is where I think I find I do hear people say this to me as well, that they're not sure where to jump in, what courses should I take, or how should I embrace this? Because it's all moving so quickly. And my answer to that is actually the most important thing is actually just understanding the fundamentals, whether you take an online course through like a Harvard or MIT or Cornell or like just get the fundamentals if you want to take something with an accreditation, or there's a number of different ways that you can educate yourself on this, but if you need that validation, as well as the that really getting the fundamentals and really understanding AI and specifically generative AI and how this has all come about and what it means. But um, we certainly don't have time for all of that. But I do want to I do want to hit you with these questions that I know our listeners will be keen to hear from someone in your position with your level of expertise. So let's just hit three or four of these real quick. First one, ethical use of AI. What would you say to other DMOs that are facing that question, particularly around data privacy or even inclusivity, which we know uh LLMs tend to have sometimes biases? So there's all these initial challenges of this technology that are continually improving. But in terms of ethical use, what is your response to that? What advice would you give listeners?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh so I think setting up AI policies for your organization is critical. And that is because they, your staff needs to hear from leadership that they're not going to get fired or embarrassed because they were using AI. Uh and they're just it won't get touched without kind of that level of permission. And it's also the role of leadership to make sure that the team has like safe, secure resources to use and that they understand how to use them and how to be safe when you are using AI. So, like that's very key. I have like a recording of a webinar on our website, and I can send that link to you if you want to put it in show notes or something, where you can like I've done a webinar about creating an AI policy. I am happy to share my AI policy, you know, with any of your listeners who would like to review it. And so part of it is thinking about the security, the privacy, and kind of IP use inside of AI. So, so security, you want to have training turned off on whatever system you use. It probably means you need to have a paid version of these tools. And really you want to have a company provided version. Otherwise, if I leave the company, I keep my chat GPT account, which means I keep everything I uploaded into my chat GPT account. And that's a like I don't get to keep my email after I leave or access to the server. So like chat GPT AI tools fall into that same bucket. So that's like a reputational like safety risk that you need to address. The privacy piece, you want to make sure that you aren't putting PII, personally identifiable information like phone numbers or email addresses into these tools. And that's because if the underlying training isn't turned off, well, then you're just putting that into the large language model forever and you can never get it back out. And if you can't get it back out, that is a violation of GDPR because GDPR requires you to be able to remove somebody's data. So don't do that. And then the third piece, like the the integrity of the information that you put into Chat GPT and other tools. You need to make sure that you have rights and permission to share the things that you are uploading. You don't want to put in confidential banking information for your DMO or private information, even if you have a secure account. And so that's part of the training that DMOs should provide to staff so that they understand what are great use cases and what aren't.

SPEAKER_00:

Excellent. Two, I'm just, I'm just gonna underscore those two because they're so valuable and important for everyone to understand. The one about data security is by just being aware of what you're posting and sharing, which is why a lot of companies have said don't even people are saying putting their CVs or resumes or even sharing Google Analytics data. Like if you have to understand, either turn that ability of sharing and training the model off, or and that's why many organizations have created their own LLMs for their own internal teams to use. And obviously that's a and then the other one that you underscored, and this was literally, I'm so glad to hear you say this because it was my first answer to this room of uh universities and colleges throughout the US that have these alumni programs. The first thing they said to me was, I'm not allowed to use AI in my role because I uh the best example was like someone was like, Yeah, IT, anytime I download something, they just turn it off my computer, like otter.ai for meetings, and they're like, you know, you can't use any of these tools. So they felt, and so it starts with exactly what you just outlined, which is putting together a policy for your company, your business, your organization. Like how what is your AI policy? And what are you what are you gonna allow? What's acceptable? What are the risks and concerns? And then find partners that will meet that. So there will be tools out there that you can use that will adhere to. So those are two great ones I'm gonna uh keep going because I know our time together is limited, and I want to get all of your insights. So um, the other one I wanted to ask you was this question about balancing automation and human touch. Since so many in the travel industry are concerned about AI and what does it mean for your roles, that's the case across many industries. But where do you see the human touch that is, you know, we have travel advisors, we've got uh tour leaders operating, like you've got, and and a lot of what people travel for is uh cultural immersion and like connecting with other people. And I think that's where you know you'll have some of the naysayers say AI is not going to change travel, at least in terms of the experience um in the destination. The reality is it's changing a lot in a lot of aspects, other aspects of travel. But how do you balance when that question you get about automation and the human touch?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh I think it's an opportunity to automate the stuff that you hate so that you have more time for that human touch. Like, think about writing. So I don't want to automate LinkedIn posts because for me, writing is like that is a process of me thinking through a problem that I have. And so I I write on LinkedIn because it forces me to solve a problem. I can't outsource that or I'm not solving it in the same way. But talk to me about an annual report, something nobody wants to write and nobody wants to read. Let AI do it. So and I think there's versions of that for all of our jobs. And I think that's going that's so that's going to get easier to figure out how to automate. And then at the same time, there's going to be a craving for that human touch. And I think it's going to be great for travel. I think it's going to be great for the meetings industry because just like you know, think of Gen Z and retro photography, right? And bringing Polaroid cameras back. People love that kind of lo-fi, non-AI look. And in the future, like we'll we're only going to get that for something that's in person. And so I think it's going to be a boon for that type of work.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, Jeanette, I have to say, like, I could talk to you for hours, and I'm looking forward to having you back at the AI Summit. There's so much more that you have to offer and share on this. I think this has given everyone a good overview of how and a great start to this conversation about destination marketing and the age of AI and its impacts. And, you know, I do want to uh understand from your point of view, like the broader vision for what's ahead. So I mean, obviously there's a lot that excites you about the future of AI and destination marketing. What are some of the things you'd like to leave our listeners with that they should be paying attention to?

SPEAKER_01:

I I think your listeners should be paying attention to model context protocol, MCP. Uh I think, I mean, and this this is me just making a bet on this. So, you know, I crystal ball stuff. But model context protocol is going to give us the opportunity to imbue our personal AI with facts, with truth. And I think that's going to be a huge game changer in the world of travel. And I think it could impact, you know, the role of DMOs in the travel space. Because I see MCP, which is just MCP servers, could contain like the information that's currently on your website about, you know, points of interest across your destination. But you can also add in what is other information that a language model might need, my personal chat GPT on my phone. And if I'm planning a trip to New York City, do I want to rely on whatever is in the underlying model? Or do I want to say, hey, plug into the MCP server that was created by New York City Tourism to help me plan this trip? And then that gives you the ability to take the facts and truth and shove it into the model that you like using. And I think our work in the future might involve putting together and maintaining those servers and those databases. And I think I I think it's going to be very powerful. I I'm not giving a great description of it right now, but I think it's that that's the thing that I would be focusing on if I wanted if I'm interested in AI and want to look three years down the road, I think that's what we're looking at.

SPEAKER_00:

Super interesting. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing all of your insights. This has been so valuable and beneficial. And I obviously I look forward to seeing you in person in Washington. And I look forward to keeping in touch and continuing these conversations at our AI summit. Um, do you want to just leave everyone with how best to connect with you or learn more about brand USA?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh connect with me on LinkedIn. So it's just Jeanette Raush, J-A-N-E-T-T-E-R-O-U-S-H on LinkedIn. And you can find brand USA at thebrandusa.com.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing. Thank you again, Jeanette. Look forward to seeing you again soon.

SPEAKER_01:

Great. Thank you, Dan.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks so much for joining us on our first episode of this special three-part series looking at the impact of AI on destination marketing. I hope you enjoyed our initial conversation with Jeanette Roush, the chief AI officer at Brand USA. And next week, you're going to hear from Lynn Carpenter, the VP of Global Marketing at Visit California. And as I mentioned at the beginning, this episode and series is brought to you in partnership with our friends over at Mind Trip, who believe that travel is at its best when local expertise meets the power of AI. And you're going to meet Michelle, the CMO from Mind Trip on the third episode. Until next week, make sure you are subscribed on the streaming platform of your choice. And be sure to check out our social channels to see clips and highlights from this conversation on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube at Travel Trends Podcast. Have a great week. We'll speak to you next Thursday.

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Dan Christian

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