We have officially welcomed our newest team member, Chip, an AI-generated T-Hawk with a smooth voice and endless enthusiasm for tourism and digital marketing. Well...technically he isn't that new. Chip was assembled somewhere in Silicon Valley and now calls a high-performance data centre home. It's warm, it's noisy, and apparently the Wi-Fi is excellent!
Chip is the voice behind Sound Advice for Tourism, our brand-new audio knowledge hub that brings its most popular tourism marketing resources to life for busy people who prefer listening over reading.
Each episode transforms one of our blogs or marketing guides into a short, conversational audio experience with actionable advice without the jargon.
"We wanted to make our content more accessible," says Renee Goodsell, our...
If you've been keeping half an eye on the marketing world lately, you've probably noticed a new alphabet soup floating around: AEO, GEO, and good old SEO.
For years, SEO was the only acronym tourism operators needed to know, now suddenly there are two more letters-based terms getting thrown into the mix, and understandably, a lot of our clients are asking us the same question: "Aren't these all just...the same thing?"
Not quite. And with the way people are searching for (and booking) their next adventure changing fast, it's worth understanding the difference before your competitors get there first.
Let's break it down.
First, a Quick Refresher: What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice you already know and love (or possibly love to hate)....
For many tourism businesses, Google Ads can be one of the most effective ways to drive bookings. It puts your business in front of travellers actively searching for experiences, accommodation, attractions, and activities. But while Google Ads can deliver impressive results, it can also become a significant source of wasted marketing spend if campaigns aren't set up correctly.
We've audited hundreds of tourism campaigns over the years, and one thing remains consistent: most businesses are paying for clicks that never had a realistic chance of becoming a booking.
The good thing is that with a few strategic adjustments, it's possible to dramatically improve efficiency and help you get more bookings from the same budget. Let's look at 8 ways to avoid wastage.
Online Travel Agents (OTAs) like Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, Viator and Get Your Guide have become an important part of the tourism distribution landscape. They provide visibility, reach new audiences, and can help fill beds, tours, and experiences that might otherwise go unsold.
But we often hear from tourism businesses that "the OTA can handle the customer relationship."
While OTAs are great at helping guests find and book your business, relying on them to manage the entire customer relationship means you're giving away one of your most valuable assets: your customer data.
Why Being Dependent on OTAs is Costly
When a guest books through an OTA, the platform manages much of the relationship. They control the booking journey, the communications, and often limit the...
Typography is often one of the most overlooked yet influential elements of a tourism brand. When thinking about branding, one often tends to focus on logos, colours, photography, or storytelling. The fonts, however, are often overlooked or taken for granted. I have always believed that typography is the invisible thread that ties all your brand communications together and creates a sense of trust when used consistently. For tourism businesses, where experiences are often sold long in the ‘Dream’ stage, before they are lived, typography becomes a powerful tool for setting expectations.
Font Terminology
Before we talk about the importance of typography, let's clear up some terminology. You may have heard words like fonts, font family, typeface, type, and typography being...
The tech world is buzzing after Google I/O 2026, and for those of us in the tourism industry, things are about to get a lot more interesting. Google has officially moved from “AI as an assistant” to “AI as an agent,” and it’s another change to how travellers find and book your experiences.
Here are the three big takeaways you need to know:
1. The Search Box is Becoming a “Do-it-all” Engine
Google has completely reimagined the search box which will become integrated with AI Overviews and AI mode. It’s no longer just about giving you links, it’s about getting things done.
With new “information agents,” users can now ask to “find, check, book, or buy” directly within the search experience. Google is essentially building an agentic layer that handles the heavy lifting,...
