AI for DMOs: How Travel Organizations Can Leverage AI Today

[00:00:01.440] - Intro

This is Brand USA Talks Travel, elevating the conversation about international travel to the United States. Here's your host, Mark Lapidus.

[00:00:09.300] - Mark Lapidus

Welcome to this special edition of Brand USA Talks Travel. In celebration of International Women's History Month, we're excited to highlight influential women leaders in the travel industry. Now, here's your guest host for this episode, Brand USA's Senior Vice President of Innovation and Chief AI Officer, Janette Roush.

[00:00:27.180] - Janette Roush

I would love to get this started just on a casual note with everybody introducing themselves. So I'll start by saying, hello, I'm Janette Roush. I'm the, as of four months ago, the SVP Innovation and the Chief AI Officer for Brand USA. Esra, would you introduce yourself and kind of talk about what your connection is to AI, and what do you find really fascinating about it?

[00:00:52.500] - Esra Calvert

Oh, wonderful. Esra, with Esra Calvert Consulting. We are literally operating at the intersection of data, insights and strategy. And I have to tell you, if we had not have these tools in AI, I would have not been able to do what I'm doing as a solo entrepreneur. So I think we are at a fascinating time frame. We can just do more with AI. And the connection with AI is, I see it as an exponential power to elevate what we are doing with data, strategic outlook for destinations and how to empower them. And AI is a tool, and sometimes it's hidden, but it just empowers destinations. And I love being an early adopter.

[00:01:40.600] - Janette Roush

That's fantastic. I do too. Signe, would you do the same thing? Introduce yourself, and what do you think is kind of amazing about AI?

[00:01:48.760] - Signe Jungersted

So I'm Signe Jungersted. I'm the CEO and Co-founder of Group NAO, a strategy innovation agency based in Copenhagen. And we work a lot with destinations around the world. And I think two years ago, when everyone started talking about ChatGPT, we looked at each other, me and my co-founder, and we said, oh, this is the end of consulting as we know it. You know, once you start worrying about development, I think you've already kind of lost.

[00:02:15.610] - Signe Jungersted

So we thought, okay, let's apply this curiosity to these new tools - for us, new, we are not technologists, we weren't into AI before. I know every time I speak to a technologist, they're like, AI has been around forever. And I'm like, yes, okay, but for us, it was when it became mainstream. And then we thought, okay, we need to learn about this. How about we invite others into the learning journey? And that's where we started AI Opener for destinations, playing off "eye-opener." And we initiated that; we have a European cohort and a North American cohort together with our strategic partner, MAS partnership. And we just counted, like, we just launched season two. And so season one, season two, we have I think a hundred destinations that have somehow touched with the project or the program, so that's pretty amazing. And I think it's so hard to say what's amazing about AI, because I feel like I'm discovering something new every week, if not every day.

[00:03:06.750] - Signe Jungersted

And I think there are so many amazing tools, things that you haven't thought of, things that you have thought of. But at the same time I also feel there are so many interesting questions to be had and so many interesting conversations, right, that all feed off AI as a tool and AI as a catalyst and sometimes also a challenge. So yeah, that's I guess where my sort of step into this field comes from.

[00:03:28.170] - Janette Roush

I would love to spend just a minute talking about OpenAI's new product called Deep Research, which is rolled out to accounts, I guess, now across the world. So initially this was a launch that was only in the United States. And it is a function that allows ChatGPT to serve as a small agent for you that can go out, browse the web and search for research on various topics that you give it, for up to 30 minutes, and then come back with a report that feels like you are reading a 30-page deep analysis from a managing consulting company. It is fantastic. Esra, I'm really curious if you have found any cool use cases for that product.

[00:04:13.800] - Esra Calvert

Oh, I love that product. First of all, what a great way just to get out there and look for credible information in a package format. Well, is it perfect? Not really, but it's a great way to start that research process, the information process. And it basically gets at least 50% of your work done. I think recently one of the things we have done was when we were looking at the tariffs in international trade, we did a little bit research on, what are the tariffs in the U.S.? Which countries are impacted by it? So it gave us a really good synopsis of the environment that we are in in terms of understanding trade. They're just, like, amazing tools to get your foot in the door. And you don't have to hire an assistant and get your 20-page summary; you have it in front of you in five minutes, 30 minutes max. And what a great way to democratize information. And honestly, I don't think the interns like looking for that information day and night.

[00:05:14.480] - Janette Roush

No. And they're not always that great at it either.

[00:05:17.550] - Esra Calvert

I find it so useful. And I love the fact that it's available now for $20 a month. That's just amazing. So if you don't want to use the Pro, just utilize the $20 version. So practical.

[00:05:31.320] - Janette Roush

This is really what I wanted to talk about in this conversation. This tool is widely accessible to everybody. Like, there are free versions of AI chat products that are light years beyond the GPT2 you were using in what, 2022. And yet, we continue to see studies - and I just saw like a big meta analysis of many different studies that Harvard Business Review put out in January - saying that women's adoption of these tools lag behind men's adoptions of these tools by roughly 20 points. No matter what you look at, what you normalize for, what career fields you investigate, women aren't playing with these things as much as men are. So I'm just really curious if this is mirroring what you are seeing in your own personal life and work when you're talking to men and women. Do you think that this is true? And Signe, I'll start with you.

[00:06:31.590] - Signe Jungersted

I think it's really interesting. I was also diving into that meta-analysis, and it actually exactly reflects the study that we did when we first kicked off the AI Opener program - because we did a survey of destinations, destination professionals, and there it was exactly the 20 points that you're saying, that we had a little over 50% of the male respondents or the men in the survey, all destination professionals, that said they were either familiar or very familiar with AI tools. And we had about 30% of the women respondents who said they were familiar or very familiar. Now, I will say also I think there's a little bit in how you phrase the question, because there are so many studies that show that women generally tone down their capabilities, whereas men feel like they could fly a rocket ship - now, I'm generalizing, obviously. So I think there is a little bit in how you phrase the questions, but the results are very the same, as we could see in some of the other studies that have come out from other industries and businesses as well. So, yes, and it's interesting when you phrase the question, Janette, you're saying when you were in your conversations, in your life, and I actually feel just in general in the conversations, and even what you see in conferences or panels and so on, it's very... there are a lot of male experts on this AI topic.

[00:07:46.830] - Signe Jungersted

And I think obviously that also kind of reflects how much security or the bravery that you feel in terms of diving in. So I think we need to see a lot more examples like you, Janette, like, very much leading the way for a lot of destination professionals and becoming more curious and diving in and experimenting themselves. And so sharing that, and seeing a woman leader in the industry doing that, I think actually makes a big difference.

[00:08:11.270] - Janette Roush

I hope so. Esra, are you seeing the same thing? Because I know you're also speaking at a number of conferences about AI, and you've incorporated, for a long time now, AI into the work that you do. Are you experiencing any pushback with the work that you do incorporating AI, you think for the reason that you are a woman? Like, how is that showing up for you?

[00:08:36.290] - Esra Calvert

I guess it's always the intention that comes forward, working on projects. Because at the end of the day, our goal is to make destinations livable places. So I always focus on the intention and try to move myself out of the subject. So perhaps forever I'm muting my mindset, but in reality, I think one of the shocks that I had earlier on in my journey was, I wanted to go for funding for something I was building. And funding world is, it's a rough world when you put your pitch deck and go out to investors. And the idea, at the end of the day, did not have a ton of monetization opportunities. It was a great idea, but monetization was not there. So that's totally fine. But what I found fascinating and shocking was - and sometimes you hear a number, and you cannot get it out of your heads, like it gets stuck in your head - and that was the moment for me. And I'm going to read these numbers for you, because I put it on my screen. In 2023, women-founded startups received 2% or less of venture capital funding in the United States and Europe.

[00:09:46.840] - Esra Calvert

I cannot get this number out of my head. It is so low. And in this day and age of democratization, education and the talent we have, it's a shocking number. And the question is why? I see two reasons. One is that ecosystem, the networks we have, I think sometimes we are just in the networks that we stay. We don't go out of those networks to bring new capacities and outlooks. And the second thing is probably education. There is not enough exposure. We need to democratize education even more. Because the magic number in any industry is when you have 30% adoption. That's the rule of adoption. It's going to spread anywhere. So we need to get to that 30% number. Whatever our endeavor is, is it learning, is it having more women just in any way? I think those two are very important. And probably the last thing that I'll add is to the "E's" that I have - education, ecosystem - is the emotional intelligence. Women are just, like, they're stellar in emotional intelligence. We just need to open our hearts and just get out there with resilience and keep doing it. It's not perfect. And what a wonderful time this is.

[00:11:09.490] - Esra Calvert

We don't know what's ahead of us. I mean, just let's look at, since the last six months, these models have gotten super, super smart with reasoning models. So there's just so much opportunity with imagination. So I see a ton of opportunity in front of us.

[00:11:24.300] - Janette Roush

How do you think we cultivate more of a learning mindset at work? Because that's part of what I'd like to be able to cultivate for the entire industry, is this mindset of curiosity. So how can we be more intentional, Esra, about making that learning culture?

[00:11:42.290] - Esra Calvert

First of all, Janette, I love what you are doing. You are an amazing advocate, and we need more advocates just to see what AI can do, because those examples make it real and people can see it. It's more than visualization. People can see what it can do. I am a big fan of top-down and bottoms-up approach. So I have seen a ton of big corporations doing, like, the AI consoles, AI committees, name it, whatever fits to your organization. I think for DMOs it needs to be very creative, and Signe, with your efforts, you are doing amazing jobs, too, in bringing AI. I think there has to be like an internal group that has the intention. And two big questions for me is, what can we do different? And what can we do better? I think those are two important questions, because let's just not have tools for the sake of having tools. Let's have our intention and what we want to create first. What are we going to do better? What can we do better? Those should be the dominant perspective, and then the AI can follow that and build that capacity.

[00:12:48.270] - Janette Roush

Yeah, Signe, you've done a lot of that same work. I would love your perspective.

[00:12:52.190] - Signe Jungersted

Yeah, I very much agree with what Esra is saying. I think starting with your final point, like talking about this as a tool for so many different things. So instead of it becoming a techy discussion, actually it's a discussion that everyone needs a language to be part of, because it has relevance to whatever it is that you're doing. And you need to have language to go into those discussions, be critically reflective of what does this tool mean to how I perform my daily tasks, and how does it change, and what can we do better? What should we do different, or what should we not be doing with AI? So to have those conversations, I think you really need to get it out of the techie stuff sphere and into a sphere that we can talk about based on the tasks that we do. I think that's a little bit - and thank you for saying that, Esra, as well. With the creativity that we're trying to introduce into the AI Opener program, it's very much about making it a playground, right? Like, making it not too serious, while still having very, very serious discussions about this topic, I think, is part of it.

[00:13:48.540] - Signe Jungersted

So introducing as a playground where we can experiment, and then obviously you have to put up limitations to those experiments, but within that, you can play around, you can try it out, you can get your hands dirty, so to speak. So I think that's a big part of it. And having that conversation where AI becomes part of what you want to achieve, not what you want to achieve in itself. You know, we've seen it in tourism. We've seen it for years with sustainability, you know, like, as if sustainability was like a separate chapter, and we talk about it in separate panels. And it has its own separate logic. In a way, I sometimes think of it the same for AI, that we can't keep it in like a box for a separate logic. We have to start talking about it across organizations, across workflows, across different tasks, and all the strategic objectives that you have as a DMO or a tourism professional or whatever your business is.

[00:14:38.210] - Esra Calvert

And I'm going to add just one thing, actually: look at AI as not a software tech opportunity, but a transformational opportunity. I think that's the key. And even just from a work perspective, there are so many things you can get out of that busy work that people are doing. Do that through AI. Bring this productivity tool, the AI stack, and let people do the work that they love to do, like, bring the joy into workplace. I think from a workplace perspective that could be very, very transformational. Instead of scaring everybody about it, "AI is going to replace your job" - not really. AI is going to replace some of the tasks in your job. Those are two separate notions.

[00:15:21.380] - Signe Jungersted

I love the example we had from, Janette, I think you were in that session too, with Holiday Extras, a company that was presenting in one of our live sessions of the AI Opener program. And so they've been collaborating also with OpenAI on different things, and their focus has also been on wider adoption within the company, which they've actually achieved very successfully. And I love their kind of entryway question to it, which was just asking their teams and their team members, "What's the most boring thing you do?" Then let's start there and see how could AI maybe help take that away from you, so you can focus on the things that you actually want to do, the interesting things. Because it's such a simple question, and it's something that everyone can... Because if sometimes we start in technology and we ask, "Where do you think AI could be most helpful to you?" I don't know. So I think it makes much more sense to start with like, actually, what would I like help for, or where would I like to not spend my time?

[00:16:14.160] - Janette Roush

Yeah, because we don't want to outsource the work that we like to do.

[00:16:18.750] - Signe Jungersted

Exactly.

[00:16:19.540] - Janette Roush

I'm trying to create a framework for learning that leans into wonder, with wonder being the idea of kind of the awe we feel when these tools do something we had no idea they could do, including taking that stupid project off of our plates that we don't want to do ourselves anymore. So I hope from the - I hate saying, like, we're “pinkifying” AI, or making it more friendly to women, because I don't, I just hate that whole conversation - but I do wonder if there is a version of AI education that leans into wonder rather than up-leveling skills or efficiency that makes it more accessible to a wider group of people.

[00:17:03.230] - Signe Jungersted

And I really think the key is in talking about it in normal language. Because obviously there is a space for the more high-level, very, I'm just going to keep calling it "techie" conversations about this, and that's very required. But I think talking about it in normal everyday language, and introducing those conversations in whatever you have in your team, breakfast meetings or over lunch, or check-ins and statuses, make it a normal question, a normal conversation, and integrating it into that, I think, is a huge part of this. We see it as well for destinations joining the program or wanting to join, they are all very worried. Like, "We're not even started, we're so far behind, so we're not ready to join." And I remember you saying once, Janette, like, actually, everyone can catch up if they dedicate for three months. Just focus and try and experiment; and obviously, as a full organization, that's a little bit different than for the individual, but I think there's still something to like, no, get yourself into the conversation. You may feel behind, but then you can learn from others that feel that they're ahead and actually realize, oh, we're not that far from each other.

[00:18:04.620] - Janette Roush

I think that is a great tip for getting people who are kind of uncomfortable with what feels like a platform that is about data, or you know, something that might be inaccessible to you, and making it more accessible. So to kind of close out our conversation, Esra, would you also offer kind of a tip on how somebody who is uncomfortable with research, insights, data, AI, how they can get over that kind of hump of discomfort and just start logging in and trying some things?

[00:18:36.620] - Esra Calvert

Just keep on learning. Because we don't live in an age of we know it all. I think it's totally fine to say "I just don't know." That's the age that we are living in. So get your hands in there. Think about it, if you spend one hour a day, it's 365 hours of learning a year. If you spend one hour a week, it's 52 hours of learning. And that's so doable. There are so many newsletters out there, LinkedIn is a great resource, there are all these learning platforms that are coming through online. Just put little bit time, but over time you're just going to be amazing. Don't look for perfection, because these tools are getting better. Just keep on learning. We don't know it all.

[00:19:23.990] - Janette Roush

Not yet. Maybe AI will help with that. Signe, Esra, thank you both so much for your time. This has been a really fun conversation.

[00:19:33.060] - Esra Calvert

Thank you.

[00:19:33.830] - Signe Jungersted

Thank you very much for inviting.

[00:19:36.360] - Mark Lapidus

Join us next week as we continue to celebrate Women's International History Month. Hear more stories about the leadership, contributions, challenges, and impact women have in the travel industry. I'm Mark Lapidus, thanks for listening.

[00:19:49.760] - Outro

Your feedback is welcome. Email us at [email protected] or call 202-793-6256. Brand USA Talks Travel is produced by Asher Meerovich, who also composes music and sound. Media producer, Nthanze Kariuki, with assistance from Casey D'Ambra. Engineering, Brian Watkins and Kat Pommer. Art by Mimi Jung. Please share this podcast with your friends in the travel industry. You may also enjoy many of our archived episodes, which you can find on your favorite podcast platform. Safe travels!

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