The rise of AI and what it means for destinations

By Jibril SALIFU

A traveller lands in a city they have never visited before, yet little about the journey feels unfamiliar. Before departure, an AI assistant had already suggested the flight, recommended the hotel, mapped the fastest airport transfer, translated restaurant reviews and generated a personalised itinerary based on previous travel habits. By the time the traveller checks in, the destination has been interpreted, filtered and organised through layers of intelligent technology.

The city itself has not changed. What has changed is the experience of moving through it. Increasingly, travel is guided by systems designed to anticipate preferences, reduce friction and shape decisions in real time, as much as by curiosity or chance.

For the global tourism industry, this shift is becoming difficult to ignore. Artificial intelligence is reshaping how travellers discover destinations, how tourism businesses operate and how visitor experiences are delivered. Recommendation engines influence where tourists go. Conversational search tools are beginning to replace traditional trip planning. Hotels, airlines and tourism boards are integrating AI into everything from customer service to visitor management.

For destinations, the implications are significant. Attracting visitors is no longer enough; understanding how algorithms, online visibility and intelligent systems are reshaping travel behaviour is becoming equally important.

One of the clearest changes is in how travellers now discover places. Travel discovery is becoming conversational rather than transactional. Instead of browsing dozens of tabs, travellers can now ask tools such as Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT or Expedia’s AI trip planner to build itineraries, recommend destinations by mood or budget, or suggest restaurants suited to their tastes. The systems learn behaviour, infer interests and narrow choices before travellers have fully made up their minds.

This shift matters because it changes how destinations become visible. In the past, visibility depended on advertising budgets, tourism campaigns and search engine rankings. Today, destinations are surfaced through digital ecosystems driven by data, reviews, social content and online engagement.

A destination with strong digital documentation, thousands of reviews, quality imagery and detailed online information is easier for AI systems to interpret and recommend. One with a limited online presence risks being overlooked, regardless of what it offers on the ground.

Social media has accelerated this transformation. Platforms increasingly function as informal travel agencies, with algorithms pushing destinations into global visibility overnight. The surge in visitors to Tbilisi, Georgia, and to lesser-known towns across rural Japan in recent years owes much to content virality rather than conventional tourism campaigns. AI-powered recommendation systems compound this effect, tailoring suggestions around behaviour patterns, spending habits and past experiences to make travel choices feel individually curated.

The result is a tourism industry where discovery is less accidental and more algorithmically guided long before a booking is placed.

Yet the influence of AI does not end once a traveller arrives. In many ways, it becomes more visible on the ground, shaping how visitors move, communicate, navigate and experience a place in real time. Language, long one of the defining barriers of international travel, is becoming easier to navigate through real-time translation tools capable of interpreting conversations, menus and street signs almost instantly.

Airports are introducing biometric systems that reduce check-in and boarding times, while hotels are using AI-powered concierge services to handle routine requests, recommend activities and tailor guest experiences, in some properties without any direct staff interaction. Marriott and Hilton have both invested in AI-driven guest platforms that anticipate preferences before a guest has made a request.

For travellers, the result is a faster, more convenient experience. AI can help tourists avoid overcrowded areas, surface relevant attractions and adapt plans instantly when schedules change. Many of the frustrations that once defined international travel, from missed connections to language barriers and navigational confusion, are gradually disappearing.

That tension between optimisation and discovery is one that destinations will increasingly be forced to navigate consciously. The deeper question is not whether AI will make travel efficient, but whether destinations can adopt intelligent systems without surrendering the unpredictability and cultural texture that make travel meaningful in the first place.

This is already changing how destinations operate. Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming part of the operational infrastructure through which destinations now function, extending well beyond its earlier role as a promotional tool.

In Singapore, the Tourism Board’s data analytics programme tracks visitor movement and spending patterns across the city-state in real time, allowing planners to adjust services, reduce congestion and better coordinate experiences across districts.

The pressure to adapt falls unevenly across the sector. Independent hotels, guesthouses, tour operators and local guides are expected to maintain a visible online presence to remain discoverable, while large hospitality groups and well-funded destinations are far better positioned to absorb these changes quickly.

A small guesthouse in Accra competing for visibility on Google Travel or Booking.com operates in the same digital environment as a multinational hotel chain, but with a fraction of the resources to manage reviews, update listings, or produce multilingual content.

The risk is that local businesses become excluded from the systems through which modern travel is increasingly organised, not through deliberate exclusion, but through the compounding disadvantage of limited resources. AI is therefore changing more than the visitor experience: it is beginning to reshape how value is distributed across the tourism economy itself.

For African destinations, the implications of this shift are particularly uneven. For Ghana specifically, the opportunities are grounded in something real. The success of the Year of Return in 2019 demonstrated that Ghanaian tourism can mobilise global attention when storytelling is purposeful and emotionally resonant.

Diaspora tourism, cultural heritage and the growing international appetite for authentic West African experiences give the country genuine competitive advantages. AI now offers the infrastructure to reach the right audiences more precisely, analysing visitor behaviour, tailoring content for specific traveller profiles and helping hospitality operators customise service in ways previously beyond the reach of smaller businesses.

Cape Coast risks being underrepresented within these systems because its digital footprint does not yet reflect the depth of what it offers, despite its historical significance and proximity to sites such as Cape Coast Castle and Kakum National Park.

The challenge for many African tourism markets is that digital infrastructure remains uneven, and smaller businesses, guesthouses, local tour operators and heritage sites may struggle to keep pace with growing demands for digital integration.

For African destinations more broadly, remaining visible, accessible and relevant within travel markets increasingly shaped by digital discovery may matter more than leading global AI adoption. Destinations that move deliberately, strengthening infrastructure, supporting local tourism businesses and building a more accurate online presence, will be better positioned in an industry changing faster than many anticipated.

Artificial intelligence is unlikely to transform tourism overnight, but its effects are already visible in how travellers search, how businesses respond and how experiences are organised.

For destinations, adopting new technology is only part of the challenge. Equally important is understanding how visitor expectations are evolving in an industry where convenience, online visibility and on-the-ground experience increasingly shape competitiveness.

Tourism remains deeply human. Technology may help travellers move through destinations more smoothly, but it cannot replace the emotional texture that gives a place its meaning.

In the years ahead, the destinations that stand out are likely to be those using technology carefully, enhancing the journey without removing the spontaneity, warmth and cultural richness that make travel worth taking.

Technology will continue to change how people travel. The reason they travel is unlikely to change at all.

Jibril is a Chartered Marketer and doctoral researcher at Middlesex University, UK, specialising in place branding, destination marketing and digital strategy. He can be reached via: [email protected]

Post Views: 70