World Tourism Day Special: AI can recommend a destination, but what creates the desire to travel?

By Lubaina Sheerazi, CEO & Co-founder, BRANDit

One of the lessons I have learnt from working with destinations is that making a traveller notice a place is only the beginning. The bigger challenge is making them want to go there. Over the years, I have seen how much of destination marketing is really about changing perceptions, creating curiosity and helping travellers see a place in a way they may not have considered before. Sometimes, it is a story that stays with them, sometimes an experience they did not know existed and sometimes simply the feeling that there is something about a destination they need to see for themselves.

That distinction feels particularly relevant this year, as World Tourism Day turns its attention to artificial intelligence and the way it is beginning to reshape tourism. AI is already changing how people discover destinations, plan holidays and make travel decisions. It can search through enormous amounts of information, compare options, suggest experiences, build itineraries and personalise recommendations within seconds. The path from inspiration to booking is changing, but the more interesting question for our industry is whether technology can also create the desire to travel or whether that still comes from something deeper.

In India, we are already seeing how much the journey has evolved. Travellers are more informed, more curious and far more willing to look beyond familiar choices. Social media has played a significant role in that change. Destinations are now discovered through creators, friends, communities, food, culture, short-form video and experiences shared by other travellers. A place that may once have taken years of sustained marketing to enter consideration can now come into view through a single compelling piece of content. AI is adding another layer to that journey by allowing travellers to take an initial spark of interest and immediately explore what a holiday there could look like, how much it may cost, when to travel and what they could do once they arrive.

For destinations, this makes the competitive landscape more complex. Travellers have more choice, more information and more ways to discover the world than ever before. A destination may surface through an AI recommendation because it matches a set of preferences or appears on social media because someone has shared an experience worth noticing, but neither automatically creates preference. Travel decisions have never been driven by information alone. A place becomes interesting because something about it feels relevant to the traveller, whether that is its culture, food, landscape, people, an experience they have not had before or simply the sense that it offers something they will not find elsewhere.

This is where destination marketing continues to matter. The challenge is no longer to keep adding more content to an already crowded environment. It is to understand what will make a destination meaningful to different travellers and then communicate that with clarity. A family, a couple, a solo traveller, a first-time international traveller and someone returning to a destination may all look at the same place very differently. In a market as diverse as India, motivations, budgets, aspirations and planning behaviour can vary considerably, which makes it even more important for destinations to understand who they are speaking to and why that traveller should care.

For those of us who have worked with tourism boards across markets, this has always been a central part of the job. A destination cannot simply take one global message and assume it will work everywhere. What inspires a traveller in one market may not have the same relevance in another. The role of destination marketing has always involved interpreting a place for the market without losing what makes it distinctive. AI does not remove that responsibility. If anything, it makes clarity of positioning and relevance even more important because travellers now have access to so many competing options at the same time.

The role of the travel trade is evolving in much the same way. Easier access to information does not automatically reduce the value of expertise. A traveller may be able to compare hundreds of hotels, build an itinerary online or ask an AI tool for suggestions, but there is still a difference between having information and knowing what will actually work for a particular person or family. Travel professionals bring context, judgement and experience. They know when a location that looks convenient on a map may not suit an itinerary, when an attractive hotel may not suit the traveller or when the more obvious option is not necessarily the better one. As choices multiply, that ability to interpret information becomes increasingly valuable.

Technology and human expertise therefore do not need to compete with one another. Social media can introduce a traveller to a place, AI can make research faster and more personalised, destination marketing can build relevance and desire and the travel trade can help turn interest into a journey that works in practice. Each plays a different role and the traveller moves between all of them before making a decision.

There is another important shift taking place as AI makes information and content easier to generate. Credibility will matter more. Travellers will still want to know what a destination genuinely feels like, and first-hand experiences, local voices and trusted recommendations will continue to influence them. Social media has already shown how powerful that can be when the content feels authentic and connected to the place. As AI becomes a larger part of the planning process, destinations will need to ensure that what exists across the digital ecosystem is not only accurate, but also rich enough to reflect the character and experience of the destination.

The answer for destinations is not to resist AI or treat it as a threat. It is to understand how to use it well. That starts with strong destination fundamentals. Clear positioning, accurate information, relevant content, distinctive experiences and genuine local stories will matter just as much in an AI-led discovery environment as they did before. The difference is that those assets will increasingly need to work across many platforms and forms of discovery, sometimes without the traveller ever visiting a destination website first.

The real promise of AI in tourism will therefore extend well beyond its ability to generate itineraries or recommend hotels. Used well, it can help the industry understand traveller interests more deeply, improve planning and make travel easier to navigate. But convenience alone has never created the desire to travel. People still travel because a place captures their imagination, because they want to experience something different, because a story resonates with them or because they can picture themselves there.

AI may influence how quickly a destination enters consideration and how easily a traveller can plan the journey. The responsibility of our industry remains much more fundamental. We still have to create a destination, an experience and a story that make someone want to take that journey in the first place.


(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are submitted by Lubaina Sheerazi, CEO & Co-founder, BRANDit, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the publication or its editorial team.)