A short episode this week on the quite unique, very sad U.S. government approach to tourism and park spaces. How much money are the parks losing, how much are the towns around the parks losing? And what's going on with international visitors, Brand USA, and U.S. passports. We are fired up!

What specific AI-related things are good hotel commercial leaders actually doing today? Great question! It's already everywhere, so we got deep and practical for this episode. We talk about:

• How Al agents are starting to handle everything from customer service queries to qualifying sales leads, reshaping the whole workforce
• How AI is elevating guest experience through customer data, CRM, and audience management
• Where AI is getting all its hotel data
• The coming drop in search engine volume
• Tools you can use to optimize your website and format your content for AI readability

AI's true impact on travel remains deeply speculative, with companies scrambling to stake claims while few concrete applications deliver true transformation. But everyday uses like dynamic pricing, translation tools, chatbots, and trip planning assistants like ChatGPT show AI is already here.

We talk about the staggering potential of agentic AI to automatically rebook flights, arrange rides, or sign up for the best rewards programs. AI will directly challenge Online Travel Agents, whose dominance rests on aggregating inventory and managing transactions at scale. Yet AI’s iterative, user-driven planning capabilities expose the weaknesses of OTAs in handling complex, personalized itineraries.

How will the online travel booking sites survive? What will happen to marketing and SEO over the next 2 years? What's a neural travel marketplace? Should we ignore Public Enemy's sage advice and believe the AI hype?