Fewer tourists. Higher costs. And the travellers with money just switched to AI.
April 1, 2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | Brisbane, 1st April 2026
Fewer tourists. Higher costs. And the travellers with money just switched to AI.
A free AI in Tourism Playbook and Pocket Rocket AI readiness tool available to immediately help the industry through travel downturn.
Fuel costs are soaring and planes are being grounded. Grey nomads are staying put and family holidays are being cancelled. For thousands of small tourism operators across Australia, the numbers have been moving the wrong way for months.
But here is what most operators have not noticed yet: the people who are still travelling have changed how they find things to do. They do not open Google and scroll through ten pages. They open ChatGPT or Perplexity and say: “What’s worth doing near Noosa this weekend for two adults, no kids, under $300?”
The AI answers. It recommends businesses by name. Or it does not. There is no page two. There is no second chance.
Key Statistics
- 42% of travellers used AI tools to plan trips in 2025 (Kody Techno Lab)
- ChatGPT has 900 million weekly users (Techcrunch, Feb 2026)
- Google AI Overviews launched in Australia late 2024 and since then organic click-through rates have dropped 61% for queries where AI Overviews appear (Seer Interactive)
The travellers with disposable income – couples, professionals, empty nesters – are the ones adopting these tools fastest, and they are the local market every operator needs right now. Yet most operators are invisible to them, and the businesses AI recommends are not always the best. They are the ones it can read.
“When travel budgets shrink, operators cannot afford to wait for the family holiday market to come back. The local market is right there, just like during COVID lockdowns. The couples, the weekenders, the people spending on experiences instead of flights. But if AI cannot find you, neither can they.”
Liz Ward, CEO, Tourism Tribe
Tourism Tribe has published the AI in Tourism Playbook to fix that and provide every tourism operator the best chance of connecting with their customer in the AI marketplace.
The playbook is free, practical, and available now at tourismtribe.com/ai-playbook. It is structured for four audiences: operators, regional councils, travel sector businesses, and DMOs (Destination Marketing Organisations) with tailored use cases, tools, and starting points for Q2 2026.
Tourism Tribe’s State of Artificial Intelligence in Tourism 2025 report found 71% of Australian tourism operators have started using AI tools, but only 19% feel confident.
The appetite is there. The capability is not.
The playbook makes an argument nobody else in Australian tourism is making: tourism organisations hold the advantage.
- AI agents value authentic, local, verifiable information. The best spot for a picnic at 4pm; which trail is open this week; which cafe does the best pies according to locals, not a booking platform’s commercial algorithm.
- OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) cannot compete on local knowledge.
- For the first time in years, the technology shift favours the people who know the place.
The playbook connects to Pocket Rocket, Tourism Tribe’s free AI readiness tool at my.tourismtribe.com. Pocket Rocket scans a website across eight categories, delivers a benchmarked grade, and gives three priority actions. Developed in-house by Tourism Tribe, it is free, and runs in 60 seconds. No app store or download is required. Open it, tap “Add to Home Screen”, and it works like an app on your phone.
For 19 years, operators at the end of Tourism Tribe workshops have asked: “Can I keep you in my pocket?” Now they can.
“Your website is no longer a brochure. It is a data source for someone else’s AI assistant. Operators used to compete for attention across 20 browser tabs. Now they compete inside a single AI conversation they never see. The operators who will do well through this are not the biggest. They are the ones who show up where AI is looking. That is what this playbook is for.”
Fabienne Wintle, CIO, Tourism Tribe
The playbook and Pocket Rocket were designed, built, and launched in house with the company’s own money and its own team.
“There was no time to wait for government grants or innovation funds, we have had to move very quickly just like the pace of AI technology. Our mission is to support the industry through smart tech and strategy and that involves rapid and agile AI transformation of our own business and tools. We knew that these tools were needed now by the industry and we are excited to make them freely available.”
Liz Ward, CEO, Tourism Tribe
Links
About Tourism Tribe
Tourism Tribe is an Australian digital marketing education company founded in 2012 by Liz Ward and Fabienne Wintle. It has supported more than 12,000 tourism professionals across Australia through workshops, coaching programs, and AI tools built for the industry. Tourism Tribe partnered with Tourism Australia on the $12 million National Experience Content Initiative, training 1,400 operators across 57 regions.
Media Contact
Liz Ward
Co-founder and CEO, Tourism Tribe
liz@tourismtribe.com
+61 (0)419 578 200
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