Everything AI in Travel

• What if AI didn’t keep us on screens… but actually got us together in real life more often?

  In this episode of the Everything AI in Travel podcast (now sitting in the top 3 travel-technology podcasts on Apple Podcasts), Tony sits down with Healy Cypher, co-founder & CEO of BoomPop, a company that just raised $25M to make planning in-person events, offsites and group travel radically easier with AI.We dig into Healy’s wild founder journey — from growing up in Saudi Arabia, to selling his first startup to eBay just seven months after joining, to rolling out those touchscreen kiosks in McDonald’s, Wendy’s and more (including the legendary “temptation cookie” upsell)… and why all of that led him to build BoomPop.Then we zoom out to the big shift: post-pandemic hybrid work, half-empty offices, and $1.7T in “freed” office spend that companies are quietly redirecting into in-person experiences, offsites, sales kickoffs and client events. Healy explains why group travel & meetings are the last undigitised corner of travel, and why AI is finally the unlock.You’ll hear how BoomPop uses AI to:Turn a simple prompt (“Offsite within 2 hours of SF in Q1, X budget, Y vibe”) into venue options, dates, full itineraries and a live event websiteMatch corporate events with hotel “need dates” so everyone wins on price and occupancyLearn a “taste graph” for organisers and companies to recommend better venues and experiences over timeHandle all the messy coordination: negotiations, blocks, RSVPs, guest messaging, packing lists, dinner changes and more— plus how a 35-person human planning team plugs in when you need a real expert, not just an agent.We also talk about the future of event agencies and travel advisors in an AI world, the incumbents like Cvent and the old-school RFP process, and what a new competitive landscape looks like when AI-native platforms start hitting escape velocity.If you’ve ever:Burned months of an EA’s time on a single annual offsiteRun a remote or distributed team that lives for its one big IRL gatheringWorked in hotels, DMOs, or meetings & incentives and wondered “why is this still done by fax and spreadsheets?”…this conversation will be painfully familiar and seriously hopeful. Listen now to learn how AI, group travel and in-person experiences collide — and why this is one of the ripest opportunities in travel tech. GuestHealy Cypher – Co-founder & CEO, BoomPopBoomPop: AI-powered platform for offsites, retreats & corporate eventsPodcast: Don’t Be a Jerk – conversations with high-performers who prove you can win in business without being an asshole. If your team has an offsite, retreat or client event coming upBefore you sacrifice six months of someone’s job to planning it… check out BoomPop and see what AI can take off your plate. If you enjoy this episode:Subscribe to the channelDrop a comment with your biggest takeawayShare it with someone who organises events and desperately needs their life backAnd don’t forget to subscribe to the Everything AI in Travel newsletter for weekly deep dives on AI, travel & creator commerce.

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• Education Series: The Blogger AI

  In this episode of the “9 Free AI Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors” series, we move from strategy into content creation and I walk you through the Travel Blogger AI—a free tool that turns your destination expertise into long-form, inspirational blog articles designed to attract your ideal travelers.You’ll see step-by-step how the tool:Fits into the 4-phase framework: Strategize → Intelligence → Content → OutreachTakes your target market (in the example: German travelers 25–50), your core destination (Cuenca, Ecuador) and your positioning… and turns it into a 7-day storytelling itinerary from Cuenca to QuitoBuilds an article outline, day-by-day descriptions, responsible & sustainable travel tips, and a “travel kindly” sectionHelps you refine the draft like a human colleague would—correcting details, adding your tone of voice, and matching your on-the-ground expertiseEven supports you with cover image concepts and Creative Commons photo suggestions to illustrate each day of the itineraryBy the end, you’ll know exactly how to use Travel Blogger AI to create deep, evergreen blog posts that:Position you as an expert in your destinationGive you long-form content you can later repurpose into social posts, newsletters and campaignsAlign perfectly with the high-value visitors you defined in your earlier strategy and market intelligence work. Access the 9 free AI tools here (including Travel Blogger AI): santiagoR.com/freeAITools Want help applying this in your DMO, hotel, tour company or local business?I also offer 1:1 coaching and staff training on how to use these tools in your specific context. Learn more via the link in the description.If this episode helps you, hit like, subscribe, and share it with someone in tourism who wants to attract better visitors, not just more visitors.

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• Agentic Commerce - AI reshaping the marketplace

  AI generated summary of McKinsey's latest report into agentic commerce for those who don't want to read the full 27 pages

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• Educational Series: Statistical Forecasting With AI for Tourism — Episode 4 of the Nine Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors

  Welcome back to Episode 4 of our Nine Tools to Attract High-Value Visitors & Future-Proof Your Career With AI series.If you’ve made it this far, you’re already ahead of most people in the travel industry.Today, we dive into one of the most practical and operationally valuable AI tools in Santiago’s suite: the Statistical Forecasting AI.Whether you’re a DMO, hotel, tour operator, attraction, airline, or startup — if you have any historical data (visitation, occupancy, revenue, arrivals, spending, bookings), this tool lets you instantly predict what the next 6, 12, or 24 months may look like… without needing any statistical expertise.How to access Santiago’s 9 free travel-specific AI toolsWhy statistical forecasting matters for logistics, marketing, inventory planning & resource allocationHow to feed your dataset into the AI (CSV, Excel, Google Sheets, or pasted text)How the AI verifies and interprets your data automaticallyHow it selects the right forecasting model (e.g., Holt-Winters exponential smoothing)How to choose your forecasting horizon (6 months, 12 months, 27 months… anything)How seasonality, trends, and patterns are detected behind the scenesHow to download your full forecast as a CSV for reporting, dashboards, and strategy planningHow to combine quantitative statistical forecasting with qualitative contextual forecasting (from Episode 3) for far more realistic predictionsTraditional forecasting requires:an analyststatistical softwareseveral days or weeksand often thousands of dollarsThis tool:runs in secondsexplains every step in plain Englishrecommends the best model for your dataproduces clear charts + downloadable CSVsworks even with small or inconsistent datasetsis specifically tuned for tourism seasonality, growth patterns, and demand curvesWe forecast the monthly arrival of German visitors to Ecuador through to December 2027 — using real data and letting the AI detect trend, seasonality, and noise.You’ll see exactly how the model:interprets your datasetvalidates its understandingselects the appropriate methodproduces a complete 27-month projectionexplains limitations and contextual adjustmentsAccess all 9 tools here: santiagor.com/free-ai-toolsSantiago also offers 1:1 coaching and team training where you’ll learn how to:run forecasting tools correctlyapply contextual adjustmentsbuild your own GPTstranslate insights into actionable strategy

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• Everything AI in Travel chats to Aimee Armstrong from Altitude AI

  In this episode of Everything AI in Travel, I’m joined by Aimee Armstrong, co-founder of Altitude AI, an AI-native startup that’s taking on the messy, unloved world of corporate travel for SMEs – and breaking a few ceilings along the way. Aimee’s journey is wild: from motorcycle mechanic on Australian superbike race teams, rebuilding race engines and specialising in suspension, to product leadership roles at SiteMinder, Domain and Go1, and now building an AI travel assistant that lets employees book and manage business travel directly from Slack, Teams or WhatsApp – no clunky portals, no extra logins, no “I’ll do it later” inbox guilt. We dig into: How Aimee went from race garages and Phillip Island to leading product in travel tech What she learned at SiteMinder about integrations, partnerships and the hotel tech ecosystem Why SMEs are massively under-served by traditional TMCs and corporate travel platforms The rise of remote work, offsites and “unmanaged” travel – and why tools built for finance teams don’t work for everyday travellers How Altitude AI acts like a digital executive assistant: reading your calendar, spotting upcoming trips, nudging you to book, and keeping you inside policy Dealing with off-platform leakage (when people sneak off to OTAs and Booking.com) The rise of “bleisure” travel and how policies and tools need to adapt Why AI-native teams (and AI engineering talent) are the new moat in travel tech The AI trends Aimee’s watching closely – from agentic workflows to video generation and hyper-personalisation  Subscribe to the podcast & never miss an episode If you found this via Apple Podcasts or Spotify, hit Subscribe/Follow so you always get the latest conversations with the makers, shapers and buyers of AI in travel.  Get the weekly Everything AI in Travel newsletter For a curated roundup of the biggest AI + travel stories each week, plus extra analysis I don’t cover on the pod:  Head to everythingaiintravel.com or find the link in my LinkedIn bio (Tony Carne).  Connect with Amy Want to talk corporate travel, AI agents or partnering with Altitude AI? Find Aimee Armstrong on LinkedIn and say you came from the podcast.

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