Propellic customer, The Broke Backpacker, a travel guide publisher, encountered significant challenges in enhancing their organic rankings, traffic, and revenue in the competitive online travel booking industry.

Despite a well-designed website, they struggled with visibility on Google, overshadowed by competitors leading to reduced organic traffic and revenue. In pursuit of a solution, they enlisted Propellic, seeking an effective, long-term strategy to surmount these obstacles.

Propellic embarked on a comprehensive SEO overhaul, starting with an in-depth audit to identify technical and on-page SEO issues. A competitive analysis followed, forming the basis of a bespoke strategy to give The Broke Backpacker a competitive edge. Key efforts included exhaustive keyword research, on-page SEO optimization, crafting SEO-friendly content, and building high-quality backlinks to elevate domain authority. Continuous monitoring and adjustments ensured sustained SEO performance enhancement.

This collaboration yielded significant improvements within just two months, with search rankings increasing by 15% across all content, and a further 15% for content specifically assessed and updated by Propellic, culminating in a 30% boost in site visibility. This partnership not only addressed The Broke Backpacker's immediate challenges but also positioned them for sustained online success, highlighting Propellic's expertise in navigating the intricacies of SEO to drive tangible business outcomes..

The CEO of Broke Backpacker had this to say about working with Propellic: "Propellic has been instrumental in our SEO success. The team's professionalism, expertise, and dedication are second to none. Our organic traffic and revenue have significantly improved, and we can't wait to see where this partnership takes us."

heck them out for yourself here.

Google rolls out its own travel planner but not everyone is impressed!

Data moats, personalisation, scale - these are all the buzz words you hear around the ai travel planning space and now Google, which knows a lot about all 3, has decided to just do travel planning themselves.

Tech Crunch reported the roll out is “currently only available in English in the U.S. to users enrolled in , its program that lets users experiment with early-stage Google Search experiences”

“When users ask for something like “plan me a three day trip to Philadelphia that’s all about history,” they will get a sample itinerary that includes attractions and restaurants, as well as an overview of options for flights and hotels, divided up by times of day.”

Meanwhile Fast Company which also covered the story focused in on another feature in Google Maps where “ you can pull up a curated list of things to do within a particular city……. Lists are created by sites like The Infatuation and Lonely Planet, as well as the Google Maps community, and offer suggestions on everything from great restaurants to hidden gems within a city. When you find something you like on those lists, you can save it to your map or share it with your travel companions.”

Not everyone seemed that impressed however. Christian Watts posted: “In other news, I see myself as a fairly competent user of Google. But i REALLY struggle to find how and where to try all of these tools (and of course, what type of Gmail account I need to use to get access) & Rafat Ali from Skift posted on Linked In “I am sorry to break so many hearts, but there is NO place for AI trip planning startups. There just isn't.” Or maybe his point was Google will just wipe you out?

Those who have been following this longer than since November 2022 will remember Field Trip and other things Google have done in this space that were going to be the next big thing (and weren’t).

FWIW I put my own thoughts on a reshare of Rafat’s post and he gave it a little 💡 😀 Also check the comments, especially those from Mark Mekki, with whom I am in furious agreement.

If you want more information on this topic, Phocuswire are running a webinar with Gilad Berstein (ex-founder from failed trip planning startup UTrip - which incidentally was a very good Trip Planner) in a session called Tripped Up: Why Trip Planning Startups Stumble.

Content is now a commodity + Do you have a jingle yet?!

I rode the entire hype cycle from end to end this week when I saw a post from WeGoTrip founder Alexander Golovaty about the music making ai app Suno. Golovaty was turning his pitch decks into indie songs!

I thought I’d give it a go for my Melbourne based free beer side hustle, Ale Blazer and got it to create this song. I thought it did a very catchy and decent job of it. For context, you literally type a couple of lines about what you want the song to be, pick a genre and push go - 20 seconds later, you’ve got your song. By any stretch, that is pretty incredible because the production value is actually pretty great.

The reaction from everyone else even loosely associated with the business was a compelling thumbs down, not because the song was 💩 (per se) but because it was just too ‘Taylor Swift vibes’ for the intended audience. (in another psrt of my universe my 13 year old daughter was wandering around the house singing it). Hello, Valley of Despair! In the end I just used my last free credit to create a punk song instead, but the wonder had subsided by then.

The Verge then covered this entire topic in a long form article bringing more context and nuance but in summary it resembled feedback I’d received on other ai generated content from my friend Dan Day who is technical professional in content creating, who said “As far as AI is concerned I think it will always struggle to make things that professionals admire but the masses don't mind”.

What is clear and also came through in the podcast I recorded this week with Tailbox founder Eduardo Schuch (hopefully being released over Easter) was that “content is being commoditised”. You can’t build a moat around content - unless it is very high quality and differentiated. You need to go fight on a different battleground.

If you think someone (or everyone) you know or work with could grow from being more informed on the topic of ai + travel (or could use the training above) then please forward this email to them and they can click the button below:

Qatar launches ai flight attendant

Not sure how I missed this at ITB but Qatar Airlines unveiled their new ai airline attendant at the show. Thankfully the New York Post were there to get the story!

The article explains the female attendant known as Sama “blends “technology with empathy and personalization” and offers “engaging interactions that mirror human conversation.”

You can actually go and chat to her yourself as she is hanging out in Qatar’s corner of the Metaverse, the QVerse. “From there, the virtual helper can, for instance, guide passengers through 3D-mapped renderings of airports and answer travel-related questions about baggage, check-in and more in real time as they are typed or spoken into a chat module.”

Anguilla makes bank on .ai

I love an underdog story so was awesome to read this piece about the tiny Caribbean nation of Anguilla who are now suddenly rolling in the MRR thanks to their ownership on the .ai domain name.

“The British territory collects a fee from every registration for Internet addresses that end in “.ai”, which happens to be the domain name assigned to the island”. According to the article that revenue reached $32M in 2023 or 10% of the country GDP. The island which relies heavily on tourism, was like so many, smashed by COVID and the global shutdown of travel, so this is a pretty nice way to bounce back.

The article explains they are using “the money to provide free healthcare for citizens aged 70 and older, and it has committed millions of dollars to finish building a school and a vocational training centre. The government has also allocated funds to improve its airport; doubled its budget for sports activities, events and facilities; and increased the budget for citizens seeking medical treatment overseas”.

Singapore puts $1B into the ai kitty

The Singapore Business Review this week reported on the Singaporean Governments budget where they allocated no less the $1B to become a leader in the ai space.

Thankfully for us the wanted to explore that through the prism of tourism via an online interview with the CTO from Singapore Tourism Board, Wong Ming Fai. You can get the full low down by watching the video in the link but the piece that stood out for me was that Singapore has already set up what looks like a Centre of Excellence where things can be experimented with and tried out, called TCube.

More of that please!

ai lands in luggage

Over in India we found this report on how ai is now a part of luxury luggage! OK!

“How about an AI-powered smart suitcase that follows you? Here comes the ForwardX Ovis with AI-powered self-driving technology that will dog your steps at the airport and railway station. It has sensors to control its autonomous movements and adjusts to your walking speed without hitting obstacles. It boasts of two USB ports and a built-in power bank juiced up with a detachable lithium battery.”

No news yet from Alex Bainbridge as to whether he has an experience you can do whilst riding your giant Trunky around the airport - but stay tuned!

Marriott & Vail both launch ai tools

Phocuswire reported this week on Marriott becoming first in the short term rental space to initiate natural language search so you are able to just state what it is what you are looking for and have those results returned. The example could be “a 4 bedroom villa with modern appliances in kitchen that will allow us to bring our dog”.

Meanwhile Vail also launched similar capabilities within their resort App to allow for natural language search around snow conditions, how busy the lifts are or where to find dining options. It was clear from the report of that extended to making reservations.

What is clear is that natural language search is quickly becoming table stakes.

How to work with Tony

As things have started to get busy in a few different areas I’m going to now change the way I work with people:

What was consultancy services to help you with your own ai strategy & other growth challenges (check my Linked In bio for reviews of those I’ve helped out already) will now become corporate workshops. I have space for just two in April. Please email me if interested in a 2 hour session with your leaders and ai forward team members. Each workshop has a cost of $3000 AUD (+ G.S.T. if in Australia).

Want to follow in Propellic’s footstrps and get in front of a highly engaged audience of travel decision makers by sponsoring the newsletter? We are book Q3 & Q$ sponsorships now. Also email me on that one for rates and details.

Always happy to chat to anyone looking to engage either of the two travel related startups:

• HandbookFM.com for those looking to up their training and onboarding game such as DMC’s who want to show prospective customers how they will train their local teams on the customer brand values and safety criteria

• Customised Trip which is an ai that mimics the human travel agent to build out a bespoke itinerary for a client before the human sales team gets involved. It comes also with a fulfillment option so the whole process from conversation to travel experience is taken care of. Great if you have an engaged audience and looking for something to really add some big value and big revenue.

Most clicked last week was the link to Mindtrip post their launch! Hope you got to read it.

That’s it - you’ve made it to the end of this edition. I’ll be putting the result of the most clicked post in next week’s edition so you can see where others are focussing. If I’ve missed something, you’ve got a tip or any feedback at all - you can simply reply to this email and it will come straight to me. I’m doing this for You so please don’t be shy to tell me what you think