Tourism Tech Session Recap: AI Tools for Tourism Businesses: What’s Working Now and What to Watch

Tourism Tribe’s latest Tourism Tech Session explored the fast-moving world of AI tools that are reshaping how small tourism businesses work, from managing tasks and emails to building interactive content online. This post breaks down the practical AI-powered tools that can help save time, boost content visibility, and streamline operations, plus insights into where things are heading next.

Missed the live session? We’ve got you covered!

What are Tourism Tech support sessions?

Our twice-monthly Tourism Tech Sessions, included in our Digital Assistance Plans, are part of our commitment to helping tourism operators stay ahead in a fast-changing digital landscape. They’re designed to be hands-on, approachable, and packed with relevant insights for anyone working in or alongside the visitor economy. In each session, we aim to:

• Introduce the latest tourism-relevant tech tools and trends
• Share practical examples that make sense for small business
• Create a relaxed space to ask questions and build digital confidence
• Help you apply what you’ve learned in your business right away

ChatGPT Tasks: Your Personal AI Research Assistant

ChatGPT Tasks are a new feature available in the paid version of ChatGPT (ChatGPT Plus, using GPT-4o) that allow you to set up recurring, automated actions. It’s like a personal assistant that runs in the background. Instead of repeating prompts each time you need something done, you can tell ChatGPT to do things on a schedule such as:

• Search the web for recent, relevant articles
• Summarise them into newsletter-ready snippets
• Generate SEO blog posts and engaging LinkedIn updates (check all output and refine before posting anything!)
• Email the output to you on a schedule

It’s a simple way to automate repeated tasks, freeing you up to focus on strategy or customer service.

How it works:

• You write a natural language instruction (e.g. “Every Monday, send me 3 AI news stories relevant to tourism with a 100-word summary and links.”)
• ChatGPT sets that as a Task, which you can name, edit, and assign a delivery schedule
• You get the result by email or in the app on your chosen days

Keeping Your Website Visible: The Importance of GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)

GEO = Generative Engine Optimisation. It is the next evolution of SEO, which helps your content be found and summarised accurately by AI tools like ChatGPT, voice assistants, and Google’s AI Overview.

Where SEO focuses on ranking your pages in traditional search results, GEO ensures your content is understood and recommended by AI tools that summarise information and answer questions directly.

Key factors that influence GEO performance:

• Recently updated, content-rich pages
• Clear structure using proper headings and internal links
• Schema markup that tells AI what type of content is on the page

In short, if your content is well-organised and up to date, you’re more likely to be included in the answers AI tools provide when users ask travel-related questions. Learn more about GEO and our GEO readiness assessment.

Automating Admin with Google Workspace AI

Google’s Gemini AI tools, now built into Workspace apps like Gmail, Docs, and Calendar, bring real productivity enhancements to your day-to-day operations.

Once enabled via the admin settings, you can:

• Use @ commands to generate documents or summarise email threads
• Automatically extract tasks from conversations
• Create meeting drafts or reminders on the fly

For teams already working in Google’s ecosystem, these features help streamline inbox and calendar management without switching platforms.

Fyxer.ai: Your AI-Powered Email Assistant

Fyxer.ai is a smart inbox tool that learns your writing style and suggests email replies based on how you’ve responded in the past. It:

• Drafts emails that sound like you
• Adds labels to emails
• Speeds up your response time
• Reduces decision fatigue when managing a full inbox
• Also takes notes in meetings

While Google Workspace is starting to offer similar features through Gemini, Fyxer is still a useful standalone tool – especially for those wanting a lightweight, email-specific solution.

Canva Code: A Glimpse Into the Future of DIY Web Functionality

Canva’s new “Canva Code” platform introduces a no-code environment where you can build simple, interactive widgets for your website, without writing code.

A widget is a small tool or feature you can add to your website that helps people do something quickly and easily, like a price calculator or a date selector that helps visits to check a price, pick a date, or view extra information.

In our tech session, we tested creating a pricing calculator (a simple interactive tool where users input details and see a calculated price). Our example demonstrated Canva Code’s ability to generate functional widgets from plain language prompts, however, while impressive, it was also clear the platform is still limited in flexibility and customisation – especially if changes are needed later on.

This tool is promising, but it’s in its early days. Have a look and a play to understand where platforms are heading but we wouldn’t recommend fully relying on it for mission-critical digital assets.

This tool also allows you to publish these as standalone microsites, but we don’t recommend using this approach for your primary web content.

The Bigger Picture: Being AI-Ready in Tourism

AI is changing how travellers research, book, and engage with tourism experiences. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are influencing decisions well before a visitor lands on your website.

To stay relevant:

• Ensure your website is structured for AI visibility (GEO)
• Use automation to reduce low-value admin time
• Begin experimenting with tools that align with your workflows

It’s not about adopting every new AI tool, it’s about understanding which ones can genuinely enhance your customer experience and operational efficiency.

What You Can Do Next

1. Set up a recurring task in ChatGPT to automate research or content.
2. Review your website for fresh blog content, proper internal linking, and schema.
3. Enable Gemini AI in Google Workspace if you use Gmail, Docs or Calendar.
4. Try Fyxer.ai if email volume is slowing you down.
5. Explore Canva Code to see where no-code tools are heading – but approach with caution.