What happens when a traveler chooses your destination without ever visiting your website?

In this keynote, Eric Hultgren explores how AI is fundamentally changing destination discovery and why traditional measures of digital success are becoming less reliable. From ChatGPT-generated itineraries to Google's AI-powered search experience, travelers are increasingly getting answers before they ever click.

Eric breaks down the rise of zero-click travel planning, the growing importance of AI visibility, and what destination marketers need to do today to remain discoverable in an AI-mediated world.

Along the way, he shares practical frameworks for evaluating destination content, building AI-ready campaigns, creating organizational AI policies, and identifying the questions your destination should "own" before someone else does.

Key Topics:

• Why website traffic may no longer be the most important metric

• The rise of zero-click search and AI-generated travel planning

• How Google, ChatGPT, and Claude decide which destinations to trust

• Why YouTube has become a critical AI visibility channel

• The difference between AI dabblers, producers, and AI-native organizations

• Building content for retrieval, not just publication

• How to identify the traveler questions your destination should own

• Creating scalable AI workflows for campaign development

• Why clarity beats cleverness in the age of AI discovery

• Practical ways to audit your destination's digital presence today

Memorable Quote:

"The influence begins before the click. AI is just one more tool travelers are using to decide where to visit."

Key Takeaway:

The question is no longer whether travelers can find your website. The question is whether AI can find, understand, and trust your destination before the traveler ever arrives.

About the Speaker:

Eric Hultgren is National Director of Content for Advance Travel & Tourism and a leading voice on the intersection of AI, search, storytelling, and destination marketing. His work focuses on how emerging technology is reshaping traveler behavior and what marketers must do to remain visible, trusted, and relevant