AI IN TOURISM - Stefan Huber

Destinations that already systematically capture their content are in the best position today to create real added value with AI. Three approaches demonstrate how this works in practice.

1. Optimize existing content & create new content

The easiest way to get started with artificial intelligence is to begin with your own content. AI is ideal for revising existing content and creating new content. For destinations, this specifically means: descriptive texts for POIs, tours, hosts, and more—as well as texts for social media, the press, or blogs.

In terms of SEO and digital accessibility, image descriptions and alt text are also important. AI can help ensure a consistent writing style and consistently high quality throughout all content.

With one.intelligence, destination.one has created a solution that requires no additional system. Custom prompting is also not necessary. Text generation takes place directly within the tourism database—where content can be edited and rewritten. Within one.intelligence, the fields used for text generation are predefined. This allows consistent and up-to-date descriptive texts for POIs, events, tours, or accommodations to be automatically generated from existing information at the click of a button —in a variety of styles, if desired.

Similarly, content for blogs, social media, or press relations can be generated automatically—based on tourism data and, if desired, supplemented by external sources. Thanks to integrated DeepL translation, all content is available in multiple languages directly within the database.

The solution not only works with destination.data, but can also be integrated with other tourism database systems via the one.intelligence Suite. This allows regions or cities with their own infrastructure to benefit from smart content generation as well.

2. Increase Reach with ChatGPT & Co.

If you want your content to appear in the ChatGPT or Gemini chat window, you don’t need to pursue any new technical approach. You don’t need a knowledge graph or other graph databases for this. What matters most is a solid website infrastructure. That’s because the major AI language models involve tech companies that also operate popular search engines. These AI applications access publicly available web content, which they find and interpret through search engines like Bing or Google.

That’s why a clear structure, proper indexing, and ongoing maintenance of website content are crucial. Above all, content must be annotated according to schema.org so that search engines can parse it effectively. Optimizing your website for Bing improves your chances of appearing in ChatGPT results. If you focus on Google when optimizing, you’re more likely to appear in Gemini.

Destinations that maintain their content in a structured database thereby lay the foundation for machine-readable content. When this data is used directly to populate the website, it automatically results in a website that can be more easily indexed and processed by search engines and large AI models. Therefore, the interaction between the database and the website is essential for a strong presence in AI-powered information systems worldwide.

3. Personalized guest advice through our own channels

In addition to visibility in external AI applications, destinations naturally want to inform and advise their guests primarily through their own channels. At the same time, the increasing use of AI systems such as ChatGPT has given rise to new expectations: Users are accustomed to phrasing questions freely and receiving an immediate, precise answer—around the clock and without having to search for a long time.

The solution: AI-powered chatbots or voicebots that can be deployed on websites, apps, information kiosks, and phone systems as needed. Here, too, destination.one has found a way for destinations to use their own structured content to significantly optimize the information and advice provided by AI bots. While many bots rely solely on general language model knowledge, the one.intelligence chat and voice bot connects directly to the structured destination.data database, thereby delivering context-specific, up-to-date, and reliable answers.

This makes the consultation not only efficient but also remarkably precise, and gives destinations control over the results. Cities such as Leipzig and Frankfurt are already successfully using the chatbot for digital guest communication on their websites.

Those who maintain data can now reap the rewards. Getting started with the meaningful use of AI isn't a major technical project, but rather the smart use of what's already available.

Stefan Huber, CEO of destination.one, will demonstrate how destinations can use existing data for smart AI solutions in his keynote address during the first session of the "AI Changes Processes" track atDSTNCMP²⁵. He’ll provide concrete examples, practical recommendations, and a clear roadmap for the next steps.

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