by Carly Straughan and Drea Lee, QLINE Consulting

The last time you went away for a short weekend or longer holiday, how did you plan your itinerary? Did you ask friends or family who had visited? Or did you Google it? Did you get the Gemini AI response as your top listing?

Asking ChatGPT or Gemini to plan your weekend away is quickly becoming the norm, often served to you unawares as part of a quick Google search.

In seconds, it returns a neatly packaged itinerary: Visiting Lisbon? Explore the Jerónimos Monastery at 10 am, lunch in Bairro Alto, then a tram ride at 3 pm, and sunset at Miradouro da Senhora do Monte. The hotels are bookable. The restaurants have reviews. But the attractions? That’s where it gets selective.

As artificial intelligence becomes the default travel agent for millions, a quiet revolution is underway. One that will reshape how visitors discover and book experiences. Just as attractions without websites were effectively invisible during the first digital boom of the early 2000s, those without direct booking and AI-readable content today risk being left out entirely.

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are not just suggesting things to do. They are taking the question ‘what can I do in X city’ and creating comprehensive travel itineraries. In the current age of instant gratification, users expect them to handle the booking as well.

But if your attraction doesn’t rank well, isn’t structured correctly, or isn’t connected to live booking platforms, the AI may simply ignore you.

The AI future of search isn’t coming, it’s already here

In early 2024, a moment on stage at the Ticketing Professionals Conference perfectly captured a shift that many in the tourism industry are only just beginning to understand.

During a lively panel discussion, Carly Straughan said what some in the room weren’t quite ready to hear: “People are going to stop searching ‘things to do in Lisbon’, they’re going to ask AI something like: ‘I’m going to Lisbon with my best friend in October. We love art and rooftop bars but hate queues, what should we do?’”

The audience wasn’t convinced. It sounded a bit sci-fi. Then fellow panellist, Jacob Thompson of attractions.io, quietly said, “I did that last weekend.” And just like that, the mood shifted. Because the future the panel were talking about? It’s not coming, it’s already here.

As AI search becomes more integrated into how people plan and experience travel, it’s transforming how decisions are made and how visible your attraction is (or isn’t) in that process.

The rise of AI-driven itinerary planning

Gone are the days of guidebooks, talking to travel agents, and even traditional search engines. AI is your new, always-ready-to-help travel itinerary specialist, the first point of contact for travel planning.

Just as people once typed ‘best things to do in Sydney’ into Google, they now ask ChatGPT or Gemini to plan their entire experience, including when to go, what to see, where to book, and how to get there. These tools don’t just recommend, they organise.

The implications are huge. When AI takes the lead in travel search and discovery, it needs clear, reliable, and real-time information to generate meaningful results. That means attractions that are easily discoverable via structured content, integrated with booking platforms, and consistently maintained and up to date, will be the go-to websites that AI searches.

Without this, you’re simply not part of the conversation.

Already, platforms like Google, Expedia, GetYourGuide, and Viator are embedding AI itinerary tools that pull live inventory into recommendations. AI travel assistants are coming to smart devices, messaging apps, and even your car. Many attractions still treat AI as a distant concern, but it’s already thriving in the tourism industry.

In fact, chances are that some of your potential visitors have already planned their last trip using AI. After all, according to a November 2024 global travel survey, approximately 40% of travellers reported having used an AI-based tool for travel planning.

And they didn’t find you, because the AI couldn’t.

What AI is actually scraping and where it’s getting it wrong

Here’s the sad truth: AI doesn’t prioritise official attraction websites. Instead, it tends to scrape whatever is most accessible and well-linked, which is more often than not review sites, blogs, and outdated listings.

The reality of this is that a tourist asking AI to ‘plan a day in Oxford’ might very well receive opening times from an old TripAdvisor forum post, ticket prices pulled from a third-party blog last updated in 2019, and an attraction recommendation for a site that closed years ago.

When a colleague of Drea Lee’s was working on their AI-first content strategy for a well-known London visitor attraction, this risk became painfully clear. Testing itinerary generation tools revealed how frequently their official website was ignored in favour of less reliable sources.

The result? Visitors being served incorrect information, and worse, being steered toward alternatives that were more visible and bookable.

This problem is widespread. A recent BBC article found that among travellers who had used AI for travel planning, 38% reported that it provided generic answers, 37% noted missing information, and 30% encountered incorrect information (BBC News, 2025).

AI doesn’t ‘know’ what’s right; it just pulls what’s available. Operators across the sector are increasingly losing control over the narrative of their own attractions.

AI search case study: when referral traffic disappears

Established publishers that have long relied on referral traffic from their travel content are seeing those audiences evaporate, significantly impacting their ad revenue. Their carefully researched destination guides, once high-ranking in Google, are now being scraped and summarised by AI tools.

Readers now get the information directly from AI, without ever clicking through to the original source.

To adapt, some publishers are now striking direct partnerships with AI platforms. By ensuring their content is surfaced with attribution, and crucially with links, they’re attempting to reclaim visibility in a landscape where traditional search no longer delivers.

The lesson for attractions is clear. If even trusted, household-name publishers can be made invisible by AI, so can you.

The emerging ‘Pay to Play’ landscape

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before. In the early days of the web, a well-built website was enough to be discovered. Then came the rise of Google, and visibility became a science known as search engine optimisation or SEO.

With the introduction of Google AdWords in the early 2000s, it became clear that being seen wasn’t just about good content; it was about making an investment. Paid placement, sponsored listings, and algorithmic favouritism reshaped the landscape into a ‘pay-to-play’ system.

AI is heading in the same direction. Today, itinerary-planning tools often pull in content from open sources. And tomorrow, premium placement in those itineraries may come at a price. Already, we’re seeing major publishers negotiating direct partnerships with AI platforms to secure visibility.

Booking platforms are also racing to integrate AI assistants into their apps and websites, meaning their listings become the default choice.

For attractions, the risk is being squeezed out of this system entirely. If your venue isn’t integrated with a booking system that AI can access, or if you can’t afford the fees to be seen that are inevitably going to emerge, you may simply disappear from the tourist’s line of sight. Not because your experience isn’t compelling, but because the tools you’re using didn’t put you on the guest list.

The critical shift is coming with travel search – AI will not just suggest what to do, it will decide what your visitor sees. And if history is any guide, visibility will increasingly come at a cost.

So what can you do?

You’re on the digital team, managing ticketing, or responsible for visitor experience at an attraction and know this is happening, but what can you actually do now to make sure you’re not lost in the churn? We’ve pulled together some concrete next steps to ensure your venue stays visible and bookable in an AI-driven world.

• Integrate with booking systems and middleware

Ensure your venue can connect via APIs to trade platforms and booking partners. If AI can’t see availability or make reservations, your attraction risks being omitted from itineraries entirely. If your current CMS or ticketing system can’t do this, you’ll need to start looking for one that can.

• Maintain well-structured, up-to-date content

AI relies on accurate, machine-readable information. Keep your website, ticketing data and event schedules current to ensure you’re represented correctly. The days of uploading a blog and leaving it unedited until the new season are over.

• Adopt an AI-first mindset

Think about how content, imagery, and descriptions are scraped by AI tools. Optimise your content for clear, structured data and accessibility to maximise the chances of being seen. You may need an overhaul of your content strategies, and this may need some careful upward management to bring everyone with you.

Just like social media and search, digital is always changing. Track how AI platforms reference your attraction regularly. Test AI itinerary tools often to see how your attraction or venue appears and, most importantly, adjust your content or integrations as needed. Don’t just sit on the information you find.

Just as publishers are partnering with AI platforms to maintain visibility, attractions should also explore collaborations with trade partners and booking platforms to ensure seamless integration of AI. Get ahead now, be the guinea pigs for platforms to test their AI tools with.

Staying visible in an AI-driven world

The digital revolution in travel is here, and AI is becoming the new gatekeeper. Attractions that want to remain relevant cannot rely on being discovered passively; visibility now depends on being bookable, connected, and machine-readable.

The bottom line is that if your attraction doesn’t have systems that allow API connectivity to middleware and trade platforms, it risks being overlooked entirely. This isn’t a future challenge, it’s happening now. AI-driven itinerary tools are already shaping what travellers see, plan, and book.

By prioritising integration, well-structured content, and developing partnerships, attractions and venues can ensure they stay in the conversation, remain bookable, and continue to reach audiences in a landscape where AI is fast becoming the default travel planner.

While studying abroad can be one of the most rewarding university experiences, it can also be one of the most stressful. After months of drowning in paperwork and Visa applications (thanks Brexit), it’s easy to forget all of the excitement that made you sign up in the first place.

To reinvigorate that excitement and take some stress out of the lengthy prep period, we’ve compiled a list of tips on how to prepare for your trip and make the most of the experience.

1. Don’t live alone

The easiest way to meet people is by living with them. It might feel risky moving in with strangers, but it’s no riskier than moving into first year halls, especially if you use student-frequented sites like HousingAnywhere, Spotahome or Uniplaces.

Even if you end up with a nightmare flatmate, is there any better way to bond with your other flatmates than having a common frustration to vent about? Getting home late at night is much safer when you’re going back to the same address too, and there’s nothing better than having your closest friends across the corridor for late night chats and spontaneous outings.

2. Don’t rely on confusing embassy websites

If you’re struggling with your Visa application, the only advice you’ll get from your uni is to look at the embassy website. While we might be living in the age of digital nomads and AI travel guides, embassy websites seem to be stuck in 2008.

Get in touch with someone who’s already worked or studied in your host country, especially if you’re struggling to decode which documents you actually need. You might not know anyone already, but you can ask your uni to put you in touch with a final year student who went there. I promise you’ll get much more straightforward answers and avoid paying for documents and procedures you don’t need.

It’s also worth noting that not everyone will have to apply for their Visa at a London embassy. Depending on your home address and host country, you might be required to apply through an embassy in Manchester, Birmingham, Belfast, Cardiff or Edinburgh – make sure to double check before making unnecessary trips to the capital.

3. Get chatting with the locals

Nobody knows an area better than the people who’ve spent their whole lives there. You might have tried to scope out your new home on Google Maps, Tripadvisor or social media, but in most parts of the world, it’s the places you can’t find online that give you a real taste of the local culture.

Chatting with locals also helps with getting over the feeling of being an outsider that often comes alongside culture shock. Having local friends can help you to feel like you’re a part of the community you live in, and they’ll be much more reliable than Google when it comes to answering any questions you might have about the area and culture.

4. Make use of international networks

That said, it can also be great to have friends who are in the same position as you. International student organisations such as the Erasmus Student Network (which you can usually still join as a non-Erasmus international student) often have jam-packed weekly schedules with club nights, speed friending events, and trips around your host country, as well as trips abroad like the famous ESN Ibiza trip.

Research the international groups in your host city before you arrive, because the first couple of weeks are often the busiest. Think of it like an overseas Freshers’ Week: Themed club nights, bar crawls, and a fun introduction to your new home.

5. Sort important admin ASAP

The Visa application process can have a lot of unexpected delays, so it’s important to apply with plenty of spare time. Depending on the requirements of your host country, you might have to apply for things like medical certificates and criminal records, which can take a while to be processed, not to mention getting documents notarised, apostilled or translated. Most countries allow you to apply for your Visa up to six months before you’re set to enter the country, so you’ve got time to get ahead of your admin.

If you’re planning on applying for a study visa after you’ve already moved to your host country, it’s especially important to get everything sorted as soon as possible. You don’t want to end up running out of your tourist-visit allowance and having to leave the country halfway through your placement – it’s best to avoid this option entirely. If you’re doing two separate placements with two separate visas and you’re worried about having enough time to apply for the second one, you could look into applying via the embassy in your first country, or paying for a fast-track service with the UK embassy.

6. Learn some of the local language

If you haven’t studied your host country’s language as part of your studies, or you’re travelling to a multilingual country, it’s definitely a good idea to learn some daily phrases in the local language. Even if you’re going somewhere where English is widely spoken, locals might be more friendly if you at least try to speak to them in their own language, and it’s often seen as being a bit rude if you assume they’ll speak English.

Simple phrases like hello, goodbye, please and thank you are great, but also think about what you’ll be doing on a daily basis – things like ordering coffee, getting a ticket for the bus, and asking “can I pay with card”, or “can I have a bag” at the supermarket. Have a translator app such as DeepL ready on your phone to deal with any miscommunications.

7. Take some mini toiletries, snacks and local currency

This is the number-one tip to follow for long-haul destinations. After a long day of travel, the first thing you’ll want to do is shower, and the last thing you’ll want to do is go shopping. Bringing some mini toiletries can make all the difference to your first night in your new home; you can feel fresh and clean when you’re meeting your housemates and having that first sleep in your new bed.

Not every country has 24-hour corner shops, so it’s good to have some snacks on hand if you’re arriving late at night. Local currency is another essential, too: Not everywhere in the world has adapted to card payments and Apple Pay like the UK has, so it’s best to have a bit of cash on you when you arrive.

8. Travel outside your host city

One upside – or maybe downside – of living in the UK is that public transport abroad will almost always seem cheap as chips. Make the most of your host country’s rail or coach networks and use the weekends to explore outside of the city or town you’re living in.

If you’re going further afield, maybe try to put a bit of extra money aside to explore other countries in the surrounding region. Even if you have to fly, it’ll probably be much cheaper than it would be to fly there from the UK. Some regions also have sleeper trains or buses to surrounding countries, which can be a really cool way to get around without spending too much money.

9. Consider unexpected costs in your budget

One of the best things about going abroad and meeting new people is the spontaneous plans, whether it’s meeting people at a club and agreeing to join them for a beach trip the next day, invites to parties at strangers’ flats, or unplanned trips exploring the region around your host city.

With unexpected fun comes unexpected costs, and it’s important to have some wiggle room in your budget so that you don’t have to turn down plans. If your budget needs a top-up and your Visa doesn’t allow you to work in your host country, maybe try looking into online tutoring or other remote jobs.

10. Dive in headfirst

While it’s important to let yourself settle in, don’t wait too long to start making the most of what your host city has to offer. Remember the end of term will be exam time for a lot of people, and even if you’re not too stressed, your friends might be – some unis such as St Andrews actually count year abroad marks into overall degree classification.

If your placement lasts at least a couple of months, there’s a good chance you’ll also have the benefit of being there outside of the tourist season. Make the most of the emptier streets and lower prices before holidaymakers flood in, and enjoy feeling like a smug local when they ask you for directions.

11. Research cultural differences before you arrive

A little bit of culture shock is probably unavoidable, especially if you’re going somewhere a bit further afield. Even if you’re well travelled, it’s a whole different kettle of fish when you’re living somewhere.

Researching things like food (not just traditional dishes but typical supermarket stock too), clothing, and religion can help with adjusting to your host country. Daily routines are also worth looking into: I had a shock when lectures at my Spanish university started as early as 7:30am and finished as late as 8:30pm.

Another thing to consider is the type of city or town you’re staying in. If you’re going to a bustling European capital, you’ll probably adjust quite quickly after living in London. But if you’re going to a small town or smaller city, you might find it difficult to get used to, especially if you grew up in a big city too. Make sure to stay open minded; smaller towns and cities are often better for cultural immersion and community, even if they might not have as much going on as bigger cities.

12. Pick easy modules over interesting ones

One of the benefits of studying abroad is the opportunity to pick from a wider range of modules than your usual program diet might allow. However, it’s important to remember that other countries’ educations systems can be very different. There’s a good chance you’ll have to get used to new ways of writing essays, new assessment formats, different expectations of student-teacher relationships, and different levels of access to resources. Some unis might not have Moodle-equivalent online platforms and you might have to rely solely on your own notes when it comes to revision time.

With that in mind, you might want to think about picking modules based on how confident you are on their content, rather than on how interesting they sound, especially if your year abroad marks count towards your degree. This advice is doubled if you’ll be taking modules taught in a different language: Studying unfamiliar content can be difficult when you don’t have the specific vocabulary needed. Typing an unfamiliar word into a translator only for it to be the same in English is always a humbling moment.

13. Don’t book your return flights until you’re there

Exam resits, local festivals, friends going travelling – there’s myriad reasons you might want to stay longer than your placement end date. You might also find yourself more than ready to go home, especially if you haven’t been able to make any trips back during your placement.

It’s not a good idea to book your return flight at the last minute, particularly if it’s in the summer or just before Christmas, but the prices are unlikely to change much if you wait until a month or two before your placement ends. If you’re studying, you can also get a better idea of your term dates, which are often listed on official documents to include the entire exam term. Your final exam could be weeks before the official end of term and you might not want to stay too long if everyone else is leaving.

14. Take something that reminds you of home

Finally, don’t forget to take a little bit of something for when you’re craving some familiarity. Even if you’re the most adventurous person in the world, you might get a bit overwhelmed by the culture shock and new people, especially in the first week or so. Whether it’s your favourite mug, a stuffed animal or a jumbo pack of Yorkshire Tea, having something small to remind you of home is never a bad idea.