A new joint study from NYU School of Professional Studies and Boston Consulting Group, published in late March 2026, documents a fundamental shift in how travelers discover and book hospitality — and its implications extend well beyond hotels. According to the research, travel discovery is moving from a “search and scroll” model to an “ask and book” paradigm, driven by the rapid adoption of AI-powered digital assistants embedded across major booking platforms, search engines, and social media.

The headline number is significant: 37% of travelers already use AI large language models integrated into online travel sites to plan and book trips. As generative AI tools become more embedded in Google, OTAs, and social platforms, that adoption rate will accelerate. The practical consequence for destination marketing is direct — destinations are no longer just competing for page rankings or ad impression share. They are now competing for inclusion in a short list of AI-generated recommendations.

The study, conducted in collaboration between NYU’s Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality and BCG, found that hotel databases and content must be structured in machine-readable formats optimized for AI answer engines across Google, OTAs, social platforms, and ChatGPT. The same standard applies — with equal urgency — to destination content managed by DMOs.

What This Means for DMOs

The “ask and book” shift accelerates a problem most DMOs haven’t fully solved: content fragmentation. Destination content lives across dozens of platforms — official websites, booking aggregators, Google Business profiles, TripAdvisor, local event calendars, and dozens of partner listings. AI assistants pull from all of them. A destination with inconsistent, outdated, or poorly structured data across these surfaces will underperform in AI-driven recommendations regardless of how strong its paid media strategy is.

The second implication involves first-party data infrastructure. BCG’s companion AI-first hospitality report notes that organizations with clean, structured data environments will adapt fastest. DMOs that have already invested in visitor intelligence infrastructure — CRM data, attribution modeling, first-party audience segments — are better positioned to provide the kind of verified, structured destination data that AI systems prioritize over scraped or aggregated content.

There are also budget implications. DMOs that have anchored their media mix heavily in awareness-focused display advertising will need to revisit how those dollars perform in a world where a growing share of travel decisions begins with an AI query rather than a search engine results page. According to Sojern’s 2026 State of Destination Marketing report, awareness campaign investment among DMOs has already dropped sharply — a trend the NYU/BCG findings help explain at a structural level.

The “ask and book” era isn’t a future scenario. It’s happening now. The DMOs best prepared for it are the ones treating their content infrastructure as a strategic asset rather than a website maintenance line item.

Photo by Paige Cody on Unsplash