How do you influence destination choice when travellers stop visiting your website?

Most travel brands are publishing more content than ever, and most of it underperforms. It struggles to get indexed by Google, it rarely gets cited by AI assistants like ChatGPT or Gemini, and it too often reads as flat and generic, without the spark that moves a visitor to book. Obvlo's unique approach works in the opposite order.

Research shows that most AI projects never get off the ground, because of the challenge with measuring clear ROI. That is why you can now connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console directly to Obvlo.

Point A Hotels partnered with Obvlo to ensure they are discoverable the very moment guests start planning a trip, across both traditional search and the AI assistants.

AEO is the practice of getting your content used as the direct answer an engine displays, for example inside a Google AI Overview. GEO is the practice of getting your content cited as a source inside a longer answer generated by a large language model.

Programatic SEO used to answer the question every travel marketer was asking: how do we produce enough good content to rank across every place our customers care about? It doesn't anymore.

The definitive statement is Google's own guidance. Google's ranking systems aim to reward original, helpful content that demonstrates E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. How that content was produced is not the signal.

In 2025, the industry was still asking "what if?" about AI. This year, the questions were sharper: what's actually working, who's deploying outside of POCs, and where is the money going? Here's what stood out to me.

Obvlo now supports an end-to-end SEO and GEO workflow; from understanding your current visibility all the way through to defining a live strategy, building and deploying new content, and monitoring what's working in order to double down. Here's what that new workflow looks like in practice.

Visit West Highlands partnered with Obvlo in January 2026 to grow their organic search and AI presence while boosting on-site engagement.

So AI Mode is not immediately becoming the default Google search experience. For hotel and travel brands tracking the fallout from last week's Google IO announcements, that's worth unpacking.

Travelers don't start on Google anymore. They start with AI. Obvlo produces destination content that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews cite, so your travel brand reaches travellers at the planning and inspiration stage.

We were pleased to see Obvlo founder Callum McPherson quoted in a recent PhocusWire article exploring how destination marketing organizations are adapting as AI reshapes travel discovery.

This month, we're spotlighting how Obvlo is helping hotel and travel brands achieve some of the highest-performing destination content on the internet and launching a free tool to check how visible your brand is in AI search.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) for hotels is one of the most cost-effective, long-term tools in a hotel marketer's arsenal, yet it remains underused, misunderstood, or delegated to the bottom of the priority list at many independent properties.

Our new Template Generation Wizard uses AI to design a destination's entire content structure from scratch.

Travellers expect comprehensive guides, up-to-date local recommendations, and personalised itineraries. AI search tools are pulling from whatever detailed, well-structured content they can find to answer the question "what should I do in [your destination]?" Travel publishers and OTAs are investing heavily in destination content at scale. And through it all, DMOs are being asked to do something increasingly difficult: become the authoritative, always-accurate, richest source of information about a place.

Hotel website personalisation is the practice of dynamically adapting your website content — destination recommendations, room suggestions, imagery, offers, and messaging — based on who is actually visiting.

Our new content creation workflow guides you step-by-step — from selecting your target locations, to defining your content brief, to reviewing publish-ready output.

Most hotel marketing conversations start in the wrong place.‍They start with channels. The hotels seeing real, compounding growth from their marketing are starting with content. Genuinely useful, strategically built content. And letting that content drive performance across every channel simultaneously.

Running a group of independent hotels means doing more with less. Less budget, less headcount, less time — but the same expectation from guests to find rich, useful, up-to-date content about every single one of your properties.

Not long ago, using AI to write production software was a nice idea that didn't hold up in practice. Today, it's how we ship features. Here's what changed, and what it actually means for a small team like ours.

Here's the reality heading into 2026: Google is no longer the only search engine that matters. AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are becoming mainstream trip-planning tools, with generative AI use for travel research tripling since 2023.

The gap between hotels that are successfully growing their direct channel and those still hemorrhaging revenue to OTAs is widening fast. And the dividing line isn't budget size or brand recognition. It's strategy.

Your guests don't just book a room. They book a destination. They're imagining rooftop cocktails with a sunset view, a morning run along the waterfront, that little pasta place the locals swear by. The destination is the product.

Your guests expect detailed destination guides, personalized recommendations, and constantly updated local information. Meanwhile, you're stuck choosing between expensive content agencies, time-consuming manual creation, or generic copy that fails to convert.

Our latest feature allows you to automatically repurpose your historic content to produce fresh and engaging new pages.

If you're a hotel marketer still focusing exclusively on room descriptions, amenities, and booking engine optimization for your SEO strategy, you're missing one of the most powerful ranking opportunities available.

Localized content marketing flips the traditional hotel marketing approach. Instead of competing on room features and price, you compete on destination expertise.

This guide breaks down the top hotel guest engagement software for 2026, the features that matter most, and how to evaluate which solution fits your property.

If you are currently facing a content chasm, where your budget is stretched by manual effort or your brand reputation is damaged by generic AI, Obvlo offers the solution. 

Today, we are thrilled to introduce the Obvlo AI Model Checker, a powerhouse feature designed to take the guesswork out of AI-enabled content creation.

In 2026, the "look-to-book" window will become shorter than ever. Travelers are no longer satisfied with generic "Top 10" lists found on a quick search; they crave hyper-local, personalized guidance that feels curated specifically for their trip.

Did you know Obvlo can publish curated destination content at scale directly to your brand's domain as indexible HTML web pages? See how we have implemented this for The PIG Hotels in the UK.

A beach in winter is a perfect recommendation for an outdoorsy couple on an adventure holiday. It is a terrible recommendation for a group of friends wanting to relax with a cocktail in the sun. The data point (the beach) hasn't changed, but its relevance has inverted entirely based on the context.

In an era where travelers can book flights, hotels, and activities with a few taps on their phones, and agentic travel planning will lead to even fewer touch points, what differentiates one travel company from another?

"LLM as a Judge" has become a standard term to refer to the practice of using one Large Language Model to evaluate the output of another (or of a human). At Obvlo, this concept has been the engine room of our architecture since we integrated the earliest commercial models.

There is strong, consistent evidence in the travel and hospitality sector showing that quality, engaging destination content directly correlates with higher engagement metrics, which ultimately drives more direct bookings.

Nobody wakes up dreaming about booking a flight. They dream about standing on a Hawaiian beach at sunset, feeling the warm sand between their toes. They imagine people watching in Times Square or hiking through the misty Scottish highlands (incidentally, both places where Obvlo has customers).

The ability to enhance and connect every stage of the traveller journey will come from building a better understanding of the traveller, the places they might want to visit and the experiences they could have there.

We believe we’ve unlocked the motion connecting every stage of the travel selling funnel - and our partners are seeing impressive results.

Authentic connection is about more than language - it's about how you say it. That's why this month we’ve launched Brand Tone and Brand Voice, with multi-lingual support. Now, content matches your unique identity at scale and in any language.

Our Localisation Agent ensures that the copy is culturally resonant, grammatically correct, and designed to resonate with your audience, wherever they are in the world.

A series of AI agents like Obvlo is a complete, automated, and specialized system designed to handle the entire lifecycle of destination content creation.

Obvlo helps you succeed in both traditional search and the emerging AI landscape, so your content is visible wherever users are searching.

Destination content refers to high-quality, comprehensive travel and hospitality content that serves as an authoritative resource for travelers planning their trips.

The issue might not be your booking flow or pricing strategy. While you've been focused on conversion mechanics, you may have overlooked a crucial truth: your visitors aren't ready to book yet.

43% of travellers booked accommodation recommended by Gen AI platforms like ChatGPT. What are you doing to get discovered?

Alongside local recommendations and topical guides, we’re now able to provide travel tips and other more ‘contextual’ aspects of local information. This new data helps you better market your destinations while enhancing experiences with the info we all need when we travel.

The travel industry has fundamentally shifted from transactional selling to experiential storytelling. Nobody wants to book a flight; they want to visit a destination, have an experience there and create memories.

Watch Obvlo Founder Callum McPherson's centre stage presentation at this year's Phocuswright Europe in Barcelona. Callum showcases how travel brands are scaling their destination content using Agentic AI and automations.

Travel brands can achieve the perfect balance: content that combines the efficiency and scale of artificial intelligence with the accuracy, brand consistency, and emotional resonance of real marketers.

As we all know, travellers don't just book a hotel; they book an experience. Their time in your destination could make or break their trip and overall experience.

How often do you create new landing pages? or update existing content? It’s a laborious task, expensive to outsource, but essential for driving organic traffic.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been a mainstay driver of organic traffic for hotels as long as we can remember. But a new battleground has emerged. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) - being found in AI-generated responses.

Customers told us they wanted to be able to display different content at each touch point, so this month we introduced a fully modular configuration, bringing complete flexibility into the widget.

SEO has undergone a dramatic transformation that's reshaping how hotels connect with potential guests online and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) introduces a whole new playing field

Helena at The Emblem Prague Hotel had a vision to offer up personalised recommendations for Prague to each and every guest before they arrived. When she discovered Obvlo, it became possible to do this in a scalable and sustainable way.

With 67% of travellers preferring brands that offer relevant local info, how often should you update it to keep it fresh?

Join the Director of Rooms at the newly opened W hotel in Edinburgh, Greg Bogdan, discussing personalisation and guest experience with Obvlo's James Parsons.

Obvlo’s Content Engine offers flexible outputs for hotel and travel marketers, with the SEO impact varying based on the chosen implementation.

Obvlo quoted in this Phocuswire article discussing how generative AI costs might come down and what the impact might be on travel tech start-ups

Join Ashleigh Donald from Halo Business Consulting to discuss personalised guest journeys and hotel marketing in 2025.

Travellers are looking for an experience, not just a place to stay or a way to get there.

Obvlo's latest update gives customers direct access to our AI-powered Content Engine.

Join Rohit Mishra, Guest Experience Manager at PPHE Hotel Group and Obvlo's James Parsons discussing personalization throughout the guest journey.

Know your guests and your city

Our guide to personalisation

Meet our newest team member

Check out ‘local knowledge on a global scale'

We've compiled a checklist of the key elements to make sure you get right.

Check out our latest product update

Our Founder, Callum, chats to GAIN

Check out our latest way to delight your guests

Discover the revenue benefit of personalising guest experience

Discover how AI can help improve your guest experience

Everybody in hospitality knows the phrase 'live like a local', but what does it actually mean?

Our latest release delivers 'Universal Listings' our new templated way of catering for multiple types of content in a single standardised format

Ways you can improve one of the most important aspects of hotel competitiveness.

Learn more about Verdi's implementation of Obvlo in a Budapest hotel

Edinburgh is a must visit for all things art, culture and everything in-between

We take a look at how content is key to both conversion and happy guests

Obvlo's selection as part of Phocuswire's 2025 cohort

Our Founder Callum was featured on Dojo.live last week talking about how AI is ushering in the next generation of hotel guidebooks

Tailored AI Content for Travel Brands, Beyond Generative Models