The way we market hotels and travel is changing — fast — and AI is at the center of this transformation. According to Expedia’s Chief Marketing Officer, Jochen Koedijk, the future belongs to companies that can blend inspiration with automation, turning curiosity directly into booking.
“The way you discover and book your hotel, your holiday, your flight … it’s all going to be much more fluid and much more automated.”
— Jochen Koedijk, CMO, Expedia
From Search Box to Conversational Agents
Expedia’s CMO explains that traditional search boxes are fading. Instead, people are turning to agent-like, voice, or even visual search — sending a picture or a short video and letting the algorithm suggest their ideal trip.
“Instead of stating their dates and their destination, the customer might say: I want something restful by the pool, with a view, and I want to bring my children — and the algorithm will piece together something tailored just for them.” — Jochen Koedijk, CMO, Expedia
This signals a dramatic shift from keywords to context — adding a human-like understanding to travel planning.
The Rising Conversion Gap (Traffic drops but conversion climbs)
Expedia’s CMO highlights a key observation: Traffic may diminish while conversions grow. This happens when people move directly from inspiration to booking, instead of bouncing back and forth:
“Traffic might be down, but conversion is up — and that’s a strong indicator we’re delivering a much more convenient experience for our users.” — Jochen Koedijk, CMO, Expedia
What This Means for Hospitality Brands
- Audit your visual content. Is it search-engine-and-AI ready?
- Consider adding a chat or voice-interface to aid booking.
- Train your team to leverage data and collaborate with automated tools instead of competing against them.
- Boost your metadata and semantic structures (like Schema.org) to aid algorithm understanding.
Our Takeaway
While the transformation might seem intimidating, this is a tremendous opportunity for forward-thinking hotels, tour companies, and marketers. Brands that enable their clients to discover their services in context — through an automated, human-like search experience — will outperform their competitors in both loyalty and conversion.
