Destination management organizations are struggling to keep pace with travelers who are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to plan trips. A new report found that 54% of travelers have already used AI for trip planning, and 75% say they intend to use it for future travel. Yet only 22% of DMOs currently offer AI trip-planning options on their websites, and just 26% have a concrete AI strategy in place.
“Most aren’t prepared yet, and the report makes the gap hard to ignore,” said Michelle Denogean, CMO of Mindtrip, one of the companies behind the research.
The Widening Gap
The disconnect between traveler behavior and DMO readiness is becoming harder to overlook. Nearly two-thirds of travelers surveyed said they would use an AI trip planner embedded on a destination’s website. One in four travelers indicated they would be less likely to use a destination’s website if AI features were not available. The study was conducted by Mindtrip, Sabre, Sojern and MMGY Travel Intelligence.
DMOs around the world are at varying stages of adoption, according to Lindene Cleary, CMO of Tourism Tasmania. She acknowledged the disparity but pointed to the rapid pace of change as a factor. “We’re all competing for travelers in a very competitive global market, and AI is changing where that competition takes place,” she said.
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Travelers discovering destinations today might find a recommendation through an AI assistant, scroll through Instagram or TikTok, hear about a place through word of mouth, read about it in the press, or encounter it on Google or Reddit. Cleary described this fragmented discovery process as a central challenge. “Distributed discovery is a big focus for us in making sure Tasmania shows up in the places people are now looking,” she said. “That means thinking about how our content is structured and surfaced across AI platforms, social search and traditional search, alongside continuing to evolve our own digital channels.”
Evolving Role of Destinations
The core purpose of a DMO may not change, but AI could reshape how these organizations operate and influence their relevance. Cleary outlined how traditional travel planning unfolded: interest sparked by an advertisement, followed by research, browsing multiple websites, building an itinerary and finally booking. This process could stretch over weeks or months.
AI is compressing that timeline. Inspiration, research and itinerary building now happen simultaneously, often within a single conversation with an AI assistant. This shift presents an opportunity for DMOs to become a more central part of the traveler journey. Joshua Ryan-Saha, director of tourism, travel and festivals for the Edinburgh Futures Institute, suggested the role could evolve from promotion to authority. “Historically, marketing made sense as a DMO’s core function, as destinations needed to fight for attention,” he said. “That purpose could become antiquated with AI. Attention is now abundant and cheap to manufacture. Verification is what’s scarce. The organization that can confirm what’s real in a place holds the valuable position.”
Denogean echoed that sentiment. “The destinations that succeed won’t just tell great stories. They’ll make it easier for travelers to make decisions, plan with confidence and connect with local businesses,” she said.
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For DMOs, this transition requires more than appearing in AI search results. Cleary noted that no single approach has emerged as the definitive answer, and the technology continues to evolve alongside traveler expectations. “There are very real questions around accuracy, governance, responsible use, authenticity and trust that we all need to work through,” she said.
The Data Challenge
When a traveler asks an AI assistant about a destination, the response draws from existing information. DMOs need structured, reliable data to be useful in these interactions. Ryan-Saha argued most are not prepared for this aspect of the shift. “The platforms hold the behavioral data. They know who came, when, what they paid, what they did next. The DMOs mostly don’t have that same level of data,” he said.
His suggestion focused on ground-level intelligence. “I think DMOs need to have trusted data on when a place gets busy, when it empties, where money actually moves, what’s shifting month to month. It’s also the only data a destination can produce because it comes from the ground and it’s inextricably linked to the place.”
On the creative side, Ryan-Saha said DMOs appear more ready. These organizations tend to be attuned to authentic marketing, and many are experimenting with AI for content creation, with mixed results. “Most DMOs I work with are working hard on optimizing for generative engine optimization, where they could really thrive is providing the ground truth data on what happens in that place and making that show up in AI,” he said.
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Falling Behind
The stakes are rising as more travelers skip traditional search in favor of AI assistants. Seven in 10 DMOs reported a drop in organic search traffic as travelers turn to AI tools, Denogean said. “Absence is not neutral,” Ryan-Saha noted. Destinations are being described by AI with or without a DMO’s input.
“If our destination information isn’t visible, accurate and trusted, there’s a risk that the answer is shaped by other sources and doesn’t accurately reflect the destination or how we want it to be understood,” Cleary said.
The urgency is reflected in leadership sentiment. According to the joint report, 72% of DMO leaders said that organizations failing to adopt AI within the next two years could be rendered irrelevant in destination discovery. Nearly every destination has experimented with AI in some form, Denogean noted, but turning scattered pilots into durable capabilities remains a challenge. “The barriers they cite are real: bandwidth, technical expertise and budget are the top ones,” she said.
Cleary cautioned that adoption alone will not guarantee success. “I don’t think simply using AI will make a destination stand out or cut through. What will matter is using it in ways that make sense for a destination, without losing sight of what makes that place different or the human connection that makes people want to visit in the first place.”
