In this episode of the “9 Free AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors” series, we enter the Outreach phase of the framework and review one of the most practical tools for organic growth: the Social Media Expert AI.
This AI is designed to transform long-form destination content (blog posts, itineraries, guides, articles) into ready-to-post social content — single viral posts or full multi-day campaigns — tailored to the platform you choose.
In this walkthrough, we use the ongoing case study (Ecuador as the destination, Germany as the source market) and take an existing long-form blog article created earlier in the series: “From Cobblestone to Volcanoes: A 7-Day Andean Journey from Cuenca to Quito”
Then we use the Social Media Expert AI to turn that single article into a 10-day Facebook campaign, with posts that are:
Short, emotional, and highly readable on mobile
Built with a consistent format (hook → story → CTA → hashtags)
Optimized for engagement (questions, prompts, lightweight emojis, clean spacing)
Easy to copy/paste directly into Facebook
Capable of generating image prompts so you can create original visuals to match each post
You’ll see the AI guide you step-by-step: Choose your starting point (text, image, idea, or “find trending topics for me”) Confirm the post angle (story-focused, responsible travel, photogenic route, etc.) Build a day-by-day campaign plan before writing anything Apply platform best practices (format, timing, CTA style, hashtag strategy) Generate the final posts in clean, publish-ready form Create one-by-one image prompts and refine visuals without adding unwanted text overlays
The key idea: long-form content becomes dozens of outreach assets, and you finally get consistency without burning hours every day.
Access all 9 free AI tools here: santiagoR.com/freeAITools
Want help implementing these tools into a real content system for your destination or tourism business? I offer coaching + staff training to help you use AI faster, better, and with a repeatable workflow.
If this episode helped you: Like Subscribe Comment with the platform you want to grow (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn) and I’ll share the best post formats to start with.
In Episode 7 of the “9 AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors” series, we introduce a different kind of AI: the How-To Articles Writer (Educational AI) — a tool designed specifically to help DMO teams, tour operators, and tourism stakeholders understand and overcome real, everyday professional challenges.
Unlike the previous tools in this series, this AI is not about external promotion. It’s about internal alignment, training, and capacity-building — because attracting high-value visitors also requires knowledgeable staff, confident partners, and shared ways of working.
In this walkthrough, you’ll see how the How-To Articles AI:
Helps you explain complex tourism challenges in a clear, step-by-step way
Creates short, practical educational articles your teams can actually read (and apply)
Covers themes like AI adoption, marketing, distribution, sustainability, technology, and productivity
Includes built-in research, structure, and editing guidance, like working with a professional editor
Automatically generates a cover image so the content is ready for blogs, internal newsletters, Slack, or training portals
Using a real example, we build an article on: “How tourism professionals can use AI in simple, practical ways every day — without tech overwhelm.”
The AI walks through:
Common mistakes teams make when approaching AI
Why “spectacular” automations often fail in real workplaces
6 realistic daily AI habits for DMO staff and tour operators
Clear calls to action that encourage small, immediate wins
This tool is ideal if you want to: Train staff and partners consistently Share your professional point of view publicly Align stakeholders around new tools and practices Build internal confidence with AI before scaling it externally
Access all 9 free AI tools here: santiagoR.com/freeAITools
Need help applying these tools inside your organisation? I also offer 1:1 coaching and staff training to help tourism teams accelerate their AI learning curve and use these tools effectively in real workflows.
If this episode is useful, like, subscribe, and share it with someone in tourism who’s responsible for training, stakeholder engagement, or internal transformation.
In this episode of the Everything AI in Travel podcast, we dive deep into the vacation rental world and the fast-changing landscape of property management systems (PMS) with guest Shahar, founder of Boom, an AI-native operating system for vacation rental managers.
From Miami, Shahar shares how he went from doing hundreds of millions in real-estate deals to “accidentally” building a vacation rental management company—then vertically integrating management, construction, cleaning, and a $50M fund—before spinning out the tech and ultimately selling his management business to Casago. Today, that same tech powers Boom, now live in 20 countries across five continents.
We talk through:
We also cover Boom’s recent $13M Series A, backed by heavyweights including the former CEO of Hilton, major real-estate families, and top vertical SaaS founders—and why combining deep ops knowledge with frontier AI talent is their core edge.
If you:
…this episode is a masterclass in where vacation rentals + AI are going next.
Guest: Shahar – Founder, Boom (AI-native PMS / operating system for vacation rentals)Connect with him on LinkedIn
If you got value from this conversation:
And don’t forget to subscribe to the Everything AI in Travel newsletter for weekly deep dives on AI, travel tech, and creator-driven distribution.
In Episode 6 of the “9 Free AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors” series, we review one of the most practical tools in the entire framework: the Self-Guided Tour Creator AI — built to help you create real, walkable, time-logical itineraries your visitors can use on the ground once they’re already in your destination.
This tool sits in the “content” phase of the framework, but unlike inspirational blog articles, this is utility content: self-guided walking tours that improve the visitor experience, reduce friction, and help your destination deliver more value while people are there.
In this walkthrough you’ll see how the AI:
Starts with a destination prompt (example: Cuenca, Ecuador) and a defined target market (example: German visitors aged 25–50, culture + nature + local life)
Lets you choose between a pure walking route or a route that includes short transport
Builds a realistic route with space/time logic: stop sequence, walking times, visit durations, and total tour length
Writes engaging descriptions for each stop (and lets you refine tone, style, and format as you go)
Generates a title + short platform-ready tour description you can paste into a brochure, app, website, or tour platform
Optionally creates a quiz to add interactivity and engagement
Finds Creative Commons licensed images for each stop (with source links)
Translates the whole tour into simple, friendly German (or any language), and can even add practical info at the top of each stop: address, time to visit, next stop, and walking time
By the end you’ll have a complete self-guided tour you can publish as:
a web page
a PDF handout
a tour-platform listing
a destination app experience
content your staff can reuse in visitor support
Access the 9 free AI tools here:
santiagoR.com/freeAITools
Want help implementing this for your destination, hotel, or tourism business?
I also offer 1:1 coaching and staff training so you can apply these tools faster, with better outputs, and with a real content system behind them.
If this episode helps you, like, subscribe, and share it with someone who works in tourism and wants better visitors and better visitor experiences.
In this episode of the Everything AI in Travel podcast (now sitting in the top 3 travel-technology podcasts on Apple Podcasts), Tony sits down with Healy Cypher, co-founder & CEO of BoomPop, a company that just raised $25M to make planning in-person events, offsites and group travel radically easier with AI.
We dig into Healy’s wild founder journey — from growing up in Saudi Arabia, to selling his first startup to eBay just seven months after joining, to rolling out those touchscreen kiosks in McDonald’s, Wendy’s and more (including the legendary “temptation cookie” upsell)… and why all of that led him to build BoomPop.
Then we zoom out to the big shift: post-pandemic hybrid work, half-empty offices, and $1.7T in “freed” office spend that companies are quietly redirecting into in-person experiences, offsites, sales kickoffs and client events. Healy explains why group travel & meetings are the last undigitised corner of travel, and why AI is finally the unlock.
You’ll hear how BoomPop uses AI to:
Turn a simple prompt (“Offsite within 2 hours of SF in Q1, X budget, Y vibe”) into venue options, dates, full itineraries and a live event website
Match corporate events with hotel “need dates” so everyone wins on price and occupancy
Learn a “taste graph” for organisers and companies to recommend better venues and experiences over time
Handle all the messy coordination: negotiations, blocks, RSVPs, guest messaging, packing lists, dinner changes and more
— plus how a 35-person human planning team plugs in when you need a real expert, not just an agent.
We also talk about the future of event agencies and travel advisors in an AI world, the incumbents like Cvent and the old-school RFP process, and what a new competitive landscape looks like when AI-native platforms start hitting escape velocity.
If you’ve ever:
Burned months of an EA’s time on a single annual offsite
Run a remote or distributed team that lives for its one big IRL gathering
Worked in hotels, DMOs, or meetings & incentives and wondered “why is this still done by fax and spreadsheets?”
…this conversation will be painfully familiar and seriously hopeful.
Listen now to learn how AI, group travel and in-person experiences collide — and why this is one of the ripest opportunities in travel tech.
Guest
Healy Cypher – Co-founder & CEO, BoomPop
BoomPop: AI-powered platform for offsites, retreats & corporate events
Podcast: Don’t Be a Jerk – conversations with high-performers who prove you can win in business without being an asshole.
If your team has an offsite, retreat or client event coming up
Before you sacrifice six months of someone’s job to planning it… check out BoomPop and see what AI can take off your plate.
If you enjoy this episode:
Subscribe to the channel
Drop a comment with your biggest takeaway
Share it with someone who organises events and desperately needs their life back
And don’t forget to subscribe to the Everything AI in Travel newsletter for weekly deep dives on AI, travel & creator commerce.
In this episode of the “9 Free AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors” series, we move from strategy into content creation and I walk you through the Travel Blogger AI—a free tool that turns your destination expertise into long-form, inspirational blog articles designed to attract your ideal travelers.
You’ll see step-by-step how the tool:
Fits into the 4-phase framework: Strategize → Intelligence → Content → Outreach
Takes your target market (in the example: German travelers 25–50), your core destination (Cuenca, Ecuador) and your positioning… and turns it into a 7-day storytelling itinerary from Cuenca to Quito
Builds an article outline, day-by-day descriptions, responsible & sustainable travel tips, and a “travel kindly” section
Helps you refine the draft like a human colleague would—correcting details, adding your tone of voice, and matching your on-the-ground expertise
Even supports you with cover image concepts and Creative Commons photo suggestions to illustrate each day of the itinerary
By the end, you’ll know exactly how to use Travel Blogger AI to create deep, evergreen blog posts that:
Position you as an expert in your destination
Give you long-form content you can later repurpose into social posts, newsletters and campaigns
Align perfectly with the high-value visitors you defined in your earlier strategy and market intelligence work.
Access the 9 free AI tools here (including Travel Blogger AI):
santiagoR.com/freeAITools
Want help applying this in your DMO, hotel, tour company or local business?
I also offer 1:1 coaching and staff training on how to use these tools in your specific context. Learn more via the link in the description.
If this episode helps you, hit like, subscribe, and share it with someone in tourism who wants to attract better visitors, not just more visitors.
AI generated summary of McKinsey's latest report into agentic commerce for those who don't want to read the full 27 pages
Welcome back to Episode 4 of our Nine Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors & Future-Proof Your Career With AI series.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re already ahead of most people in the travel industry.
Today, we dive into one of the most practical and operationally valuable AI tools in Santiago’s suite: the Statistical Forecasting AI.
Whether you’re a DMO, hotel, tour operator, attraction, airline, or startup — if you have any historical data (visitation, occupancy, revenue, arrivals, spending, bookings), this tool lets you instantly predict what the next 6, 12, or 24 months may look like… without needing any statistical expertise.
How to access Santiago’s 9 free travel-specific AI tools
Why statistical forecasting matters for logistics, marketing, inventory planning & resource allocation
How to feed your dataset into the AI (CSV, Excel, Google Sheets, or pasted text)
How the AI verifies and interprets your data automatically
How it selects the right forecasting model (e.g., Holt-Winters exponential smoothing)
How to choose your forecasting horizon (6 months, 12 months, 27 months… anything)
How seasonality, trends, and patterns are detected behind the scenes
How to download your full forecast as a CSV for reporting, dashboards, and strategy planning
How to combine quantitative statistical forecasting with qualitative contextual forecasting (from Episode 3) for far more realistic predictions
Traditional forecasting requires:
an analyst
statistical software
several days or weeks
and often thousands of dollars
This tool:
runs in seconds
explains every step in plain English
recommends the best model for your data
produces clear charts + downloadable CSVs
works even with small or inconsistent datasets
is specifically tuned for tourism seasonality, growth patterns, and demand curves
We forecast the monthly arrival of German visitors to Ecuador through to December 2027 — using real data and letting the AI detect trend, seasonality, and noise.
You’ll see exactly how the model:
interprets your dataset
validates its understanding
selects the appropriate method
produces a complete 27-month projection
explains limitations and contextual adjustments
Access all 9 tools here:
santiagor.com/free-ai-tools
Santiago also offers 1:1 coaching and team training where you’ll learn how to:
run forecasting tools correctly
apply contextual adjustments
build your own GPTs
translate insights into actionable strategy
In this episode of Everything AI in Travel, I’m joined by Aimee Armstrong, co-founder of Altitude AI, an AI-native startup that’s taking on the messy, unloved world of corporate travel for SMEs – and breaking a few ceilings along the way.
Aimee’s journey is wild: from motorcycle mechanic on Australian superbike race teams, rebuilding race engines and specialising in suspension, to product leadership roles at SiteMinder, Domain and Go1, and now building an AI travel assistant that lets employees book and manage business travel directly from Slack, Teams or WhatsApp – no clunky portals, no extra logins, no “I’ll do it later” inbox guilt.
We dig into:
How Aimee went from race garages and Phillip Island to leading product in travel tech What she learned at SiteMinder about integrations, partnerships and the hotel tech ecosystem
Why SMEs are massively under-served by traditional TMCs and corporate travel platforms The rise of remote work, offsites and “unmanaged” travel – and why tools built for finance teams don’t work for everyday travellers
How Altitude AI acts like a digital executive assistant: reading your calendar, spotting upcoming trips, nudging you to book, and keeping you inside policy Dealing with off-platform leakage (when people sneak off to OTAs and Booking.com)
The rise of “bleisure” travel and how policies and tools need to adapt
Why AI-native teams (and AI engineering talent) are the new moat in travel tech
The AI trends Aimee’s watching closely – from agentic workflows to video generation and hyper-personalisation
Subscribe to the podcast & never miss an episode If you found this via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, hit Subscribe/Follow so you always get the latest conversations with the makers, shapers and buyers of AI in travel.
Get the weekly Everything AI in Travel newsletter
For a curated roundup of the biggest AI + travel stories each week, plus extra analysis I don’t cover on the pod: Head to everythingaiintravel.com or find the link in my LinkedIn bio (Tony Carne).
Connect with Amy Want to talk corporate travel, AI agents or partnering with Altitude AI? Find Aimee Armstrong on LinkedIn and say you came from the podcast.
If you work in travel and your company still isn’t taking AI seriously… your career might be at risk.
This episode gives you a practical, real-world way to catch up fast.
Today, we hand the mic to Dr. Santiago Rodriguez — educator, PhD, and creator of a suite of free AI tools built specifically for travel professionals, tourism boards, and small businesses.
In just 15 minutes, Santiago shows you how to use his Contextual Market Assessment AI: a powerful tool that evaluates your source market and destination across 29 factors and 5 key dimensions — economic, sociopolitical, environmental, psycho-emotional, and more.
It’s the kind of market intelligence that normally takes weeks of research and thousands of dollars…
Now available instantly — and you can run it anytime you need.
How to access Santiago’s 9 free travel-specific AI tools
How market intelligence becomes your unfair advantage
How to assess ANY source market + destination pairing using context
How AI weighs risk, opportunity, and scenario planning
How to spot optimistic vs conservative demand forecasts
How to adjust strategy based on real-time global conditions
Why guiding AI with your expertise produces 10× better results
How to update your market strategy in under 30 minutes, not months
This session walks you step-by-step through:
Researching the source market
Researching the destination
Understanding contextual interrelations
Rating risk/opportunity across 29 factors
Generating forecast percentages
Creating optimistic + conservative strategy scenarios
Exporting an executive summary you can use immediately
If you want to stay relevant, level up your AI IQ, or help your company stop guessing and start knowing — this episode is for you.
Get Santiago’s free tools here:
santiagor.com/free-ai-tools
Santiago also offers a coaching program where you can learn how to:
Use all nine tools effectively
Apply them to your own markets
Build your own custom GPTs for travel
This show highlights the makers, shapers, and buyers of AI in travel.
It’s now one of the Top 3 Travel Technology podcasts on Apple Podcasts — and most listeners find us through search (wild, right?).
Hit Subscribe if you want weekly insights on AI, travel, distribution, and the tools that are reshaping our industry.
On today's episode of our new and FREE educational series to help everyone get up to speed on AI, instructor Santiago takes us into the first tool - The Tourism Expert.
The Tourism Expert is a custom GPT which you can access for FREE to help you build out your initial strategy for your business.
Santiago takes you step by step on exactly how you use this tool to build an actionable 3 month plan for your business. This will include creating visitor personas and then building from there into the other elements in this course.
The tool will help coach you into building the future of your business.
In this first episode of our new education series, educator Santiago Rodriguez PHD takes us through exactly what this FREE course entails, how you can use it and where to find the tools.
The aim of this education series is to help your business attract high value visitors and boost your career if you are an employee.
Welcome to this introduction to our new educational series on AI in Travel.
Quite frankly we are concerned. A recent EY study found only 29% of employees in billion dollar companies believe they have been given sufficient education in how to work with AI and AI agents.
We suspect that number is about 10% in travel and even less in SMB's.
Those in that 29% are set to jump to the head of the promotion list and be sought after by other companies over the next couple of years. This is one of those rare opportunities for people to make a huge leap in their career trajectory - simply by being curious and digging in to get themselves ahead of the pack.
We are removing cost from the decision tree with this series which we are offering totally for free to anyone who wants to finally get themselves or their company moving on the AI train.
The cost of not getting educated is the true cost here.
Make sure to subscribe to the podcast and newsletter to get each edition notified to you.
You can find the tools we will be working with alongside educator and PHD, Mr Santiago Rodriguez who gets paid by companies to provide this education to the staff within here: www.santiagor.com/free-ai-tools
Claire Robinson is building a data powerhouse to pair with generative AI from her base in regional France.
What started as a need for more granular information in her own travels has grown into a sophisticated system to collect all manner of data that nowhere else.
Hear how Claire, who comes from a scientific background, is using that data to provide grounded AI outputs that can beat the competition.
Mennan Yelkenci isn’t waiting for someone else to solve the big consumer opportunity in travel + AI. He is building the solution.
This is an episode about taking big swings for wins.
I always love catching up with Alex Bainbridge. Not only is he the number one member of the Everything AI in Slack community but the way he looks at and conceives (rather than perceives - this man is a doer, not a watcher) the world is just so different to most of us.
I therefore jumped at the chance to co-host a session at the upcoming Arival event in Washington DC with Alex where anyone who has their own ideas, thoughts or challenges with AI can drop by and we can chat those through as a group.
I caught up with Alex in advance here on the pod to help set the scene and to give a glimpse to those who can’t make it. (Discounted ticket below if you can).
We also have special offer for those looking to attend the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences in early October, happening in Washington DC. You'll hear about it early in this episode.
Use Promo Code: FOATOCRDC to get a special discount just for our listeners.
I'll be attending so join me this 29–30 September in Washington, DC for the Arival AI Forum for Destination Experiences — a hands-on, intensive learning forum built for destination experiences leaders serious about applying AI in meaningful, measurable ways.
Special Offer for AI Forum at Arival 2025
The McKinsey report into the impact of AI agents in travel runs at 47 pages.
Only the truly dedicated are reading that one.
For the rest of us - here is a podcast made by AI about AI using NotebookLM to get the jist of what is in the report.
I saw a post by Amir Mohajer of HostAI on LinkedIn that stopped me in my tracks.
Amir posted about how the chase of shiny new objects in the AI landscape nearly killed his entire business.
Whilst the business survived, there were casualties, including Amir's two co-founders. This story is a warning and a celebration all rolled up into one.
Richard Savoie from Adiona is a patent-holding executive and engineer that is currently reinventing urban mobility, logistics, and transport planning.
His company Adiona is an award-winning AI-powered delivery route planning and optimization platform for large fleets, currently powering millions of deliveries globally for the world's best brands like Coca-Cola, Amazon, Australia Post, Marley Spoon, and more. It's up to 87% faster, 90% more accurate, and results in up to 50% lower cost than competing delivery optimization platforms.
We chat to Richard around why AI and logistics are such a good match for one another and how that funnels down to wins for the travel industry (if they are paying attention).
This week I chatted with Tata Crocombe. Tata is a hotelier in the remote Cook Islands but he is not letting his remote location hold back his advancement with AI.
In one of the most remarkable conversations I've had since starting this podcast journey, Tata takes us through how going all in on AI has completely transformed not only hotel operations, but also the hotels fortunes.
Whilst many still grapple with where to start, Tata thinks differently and starts everything with AI to see what happens.
This is one you can't afford to miss.