At a recent WiT Queenstown panel, three industry leaders discussed how social and commerce in the age of AI are reshaping how travelers find experiences, offering a mix of data points and practical tips.
Panelists and their personal travel finds
Marcus Yong of Klook, Ben Gunn of Fabulate and Hermione Joye from Google shared how AI and social feeds guided their own trips. Joye booked a family stay in Port Douglas after a Gemini suggestion, Gunn followed a social post to a luxury Tasmanian lodge, and Yong tried snowboarding in Hokkaido after a viral post, now favoring Queenstown as his go‑to spot.
Klook’s creator network and AI adoption
Klook runs a creator network of roughly 40,000 members. The group recently gathered a hundred creators in Taichung, Taiwan, and plans a similar meetup in Phu Quoc, Vietnam, in September.
From the Taiwan event, Yong highlighted three takeaways. First, creators aged 18‑25 treat AI as a partner, quickly reaching for tools like ChatGPT or Claude to brainstorm angles, contrary to Klook’s expectation that they would avoid AI for authenticity.
Second, social commerce is no longer just top‑of‑funnel buzz. Influencers now design content with conversion in mind because commissions follow sales. Third, genuine travel stories still stem from direct interaction with merchants, market stalls and locals, prompting Klook to place creators in front of the people they film.
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Google’s data backs the shift.
Search queries are getting longer and more conversational, evolving from simple phrases like “best hotels” to multi‑word questions such as “where is the best hotel for a family of five?” The trend appears across standard search, AI mode and Gemini.
Gunn noted Fabulate tracks over 300 million creator profiles. He warned that commissioning pricey content without backing it with paid media wastes resources, comparing it to producing a TV ad and never airing it.
The APAC region shows a stark contrast: it accounts for about a quarter of global tourism searches but generates over 70 % of worldwide travel video views on YouTube, a gap Joye attributes to video’s advantage in a linguistically diverse market. AI usage mirrors this pattern, with seven of the top ten AI markets in APAC, led by India.
Brands often stumble by separating content creation from media buying. Yong explained that in many companies the content team and the paid‑social team simply don’t talk, leading to missed opportunities for amplification.
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Google’s Joye also highlighted that tourism spending now outpaces growth in essentials like groceries and fuel by a factor of 3.3, signaling a shift in consumer priorities across Southeast Asia.
In the middle of the discussion, an observation emerged: while data points to strong AI adoption, the real test will be how quickly brands can translate those insights into seamless shopper experiences without over‑engineering the process.
Practical advice for brands
When asked for a single tip, Yong said Klook builds its content around capturing existing demand rather than creating inspiration, leaving that role to destination marketing organizations or airlines. The focus is on helping a traveler decide between a self‑drive tour or a speedboat ride at the moment they’re ready to book.
Joye pointed to two Google ad products—Demand Gen for video and AI Max for search—designed to power campaigns with AI while simplifying cross‑platform management.