Hello,

Travel is great, but it also ads a bunch of delays in routines. So a little later than usual. But nobody’s counting. I hope you enjoy the newsletter as much as I’m enjoying the great spring in Paris.

Best, Martin

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LVMH’s odd push downscale

Moet & Chandon did a collab with Deliveroo recently. The campaign probably was a great success. But I’m curious about LVMH’s recent foray down as a luxury brand. Some of the collabs make sense, F1 as a luxury sport, the Olympics was smart too, but Deliveroo? Are they chasing growth at any cost? or is there a real strategy to become the high-end of the mid-range brands?

DELIVEROO COMMERCE MEDIA

Future battles of digital ads

Amazon, Google, and Meta have the tools to automate digital advertising at scale, while platforms like Expedia, Booking, and Uber need partnerships or acquisitions to leverage Generative AI for retail media. The automating of digital ads is clearly going to happen, we’ve seen it with performance marketing. I’m on the fence, will this just make bland and boring ads optimized per user for clicks.

COMPETING IN DIGITAL ADVERTISING

About me: I'm a fractional CMO for large travel technology companies helping turn them into industry leaders. I'm also the co-founder of 10minutes.news a hotel news media that is unsensational, factual and keeps hoteliers updated on the industry.  

GDS keeps on keeping on

Since the arrival of the internet the GDS was meant to disappear. Yet it is still here and it has even been growing lately. Travel agency bookings through GDS channels are expected to grow by 125% by 2030. And while I think AI travel agents will become a thing. There might be a model where AI does the inspiration part and a human fine tunes for the guest. Thus getting the best of both worlds.

GDS BOOKINGS GROWTH

What is your Return on Concierge?

The first thing we tried to automate was a digital concierge, but that’s probably the last thing we should automate (if ever). Usually we use the concierge to help us solve problems that seem hard to solve alone. Doing that in front of a tablet or a phone is frustrating, we already struggle with the problem. That’s the ideal moment for someone helpful to come along and sort it out. It also delivers those moments of massive relief that someone can solve it which are invaluable in a hotel stay. If anything, let’s use AI and automation to turn everyone in the hotel into a concierge.

CONCIERGE SERVICE VALUE

AI Trip Planners are obvious

It is obvious that AI trip planners are going to become a thing. Which ones will be best we don’t know yet. That’s like predicting the browser or search engine back in the 90s. But is there any other way this will go? I can’t really imagine any.

KAYAK AI TRAVEL ASSISTANT

OpenAI’s bizarre Jony Ive acquisition

I’m a huge fan of Jony Ive and his design ethos. But I’m also a realist. He didn’t make Apple, he had a visionary CEO and a hugely talented Operations guy who could ship. The design was sublime but the timing and shipping was amazing. Also, I believe in a third device that plugs to the phone. But I’m struggling to see how the idea of building an AI device fresh off the failures of AI-pin (and with AI being such early stage) is worth $6 billion (btw, Jony Ive will remain an external consultant). Are we reaching Internet bubble level valuations?

OPENAI ACQUIRES IO PRODUCTS

Another Case for AI Imagery

This great article from Hotel Nuggets about how hotels pigeonhole themselves with their meeting and events space is quite true. The space is empty a lot of the time (most of the time). What about using AI to help stage it for different use cases? This is where imagination is the limit. “Turn this space into an afternoon co-working space” or “make this into a company retreat with brainstorm sessions, hackathons, meetings etc”.

HOTEL MEETING ROOMS

Podcast: I was invited on the Hospitality Daily Podcast and spoke about technology in hospitality, some thoughts on what wont change in hospitality, and why I co-founded 10minutes.news. Best, Martin

Opinion

From Search Engines to Answer Engines

There’s a fundamental shift in how we think about getting information from the internet: Search engines are being replaced by Answer Engines.

For the past few decades, we’ve optimized content for search. Someone types in a query, the search engine offers a list of links. Basically search engines act like a sort of filtering mechanism of the data on the internet.

But now, increasingly, people don’t want options of what is out there. They want the answer, one synthesized response. The algorithm doesn’t suggest where to look. It tells you what to know (well, hopefully people will apply some critical thinking to the LLM and ask where the data came from).

This changes how content needs to be built.

In the age of search, content was created to attract clicks to make sure you’re included in the filter. In the age of answers, content must be designed to provide answers.

I am not an SEO expert, but the shift in mindset from search engine optimization to answer engine optimization is the key. FAQs are a good example of optimizing for this model, but maybe they need a lot more content in each answer with more examples? Each answer you write might be the exact snippet a language model feeds to a user in response to a query (oh how I don’t want to be the webspam team of the various AI model makers right now).

This doesn’t mean we throw away beautiful imagery or storytelling, especially in hospitality where emotional resonance still drives conversions, reviews and great visual assets will remain important IMO. But we should ask: what part of this page answers something?

There’s no perfect playbook yet. This isn’t classic SEO. But it’s becoming clear: we need to move from optimizing content to be found, to designing content so it becomes the answer. It’s less about filtering the internet for links of possible answers and more about training the machines to use the content as the answer.

And the earlier we start shifting our content mindset, the better prepared we’ll be when those AI agents become the default front door to our websites.

• How is Data Revolutionizing Formula 1? – Link

• The “Eventisation” of Sports – Link

• Online Video Ads and the lowering attention – Link

• What Trends Are Shaping the Future of Hospitality? – Link [Partner]