<\/p>\n
Tourism businesses that fail to embrace artificial intelligence could disappear within five years, Viator founder Rod Cuthbert has warned, describing AI as the industry\u2019s biggest disruption since the arrival of the internet.<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking at the Australian Tourism Export Council\u2019s (ATEC) Meeting Place 2026 in Hobart on Thursday (29 October), Cuthbert warned that AI would fundamentally reshape the global tourism distribution system, challenging established business models and forcing operators to rethink their place in the market.<\/p>\n \u201cIf business leaders aren\u2019t prepared to embrace this change, I question whether some of those businesses will still be here in five years\u2019 time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Cuthbert compared the rise of AI to the arrival of the internet three decades ago, when many tourism businesses underestimated how dramatically technology would transform the way consumers researched and booked travel.<\/p>\n \u201cThirty years ago, I spoke at an AFTA conference about the arrival of the internet and what it might mean for tourism businesses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSome recognised the opportunity and worked out how to adapt and profit from the change, but others thought of it simply as a way to put their brochures online.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the idea of consumers booking flights without a travel agent once seemed almost impossible, yet online booking has since become an everyday part of the travel experience.<\/p>\n \u201cSince then we\u2019ve seen Google, online travel agents, smartphones, social media and consumer reviews transform the travel landscape and today AI represents another fundamental shift as significant as the arrival of the internet itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Cuthbert warned that businesses operating between tourism suppliers and consumers would face particular pressure as AI transforms how travel products are discovered, packaged and sold.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re operating between the tourism supplier and the end customer, you need to be able to justify your position in that distribution channel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n However, he stressed that AI also presented significant opportunities for operators willing to adapt, particularly through stronger collaboration with industry partners.<\/p>\n \u201cAI offers enormous opportunities to improve business efficiency, but the real opportunity, particularly in export tourism, is how businesses use it to collaborate with their industry partners.\u201d<\/p>\n He encouraged tourism businesses to use AI to make their expertise, products and commercial relationships more accessible to distribution partners, helping demonstrate their ongoing value.<\/p>\n Cuthbert said the challenge extended beyond technology, requiring a fundamental shift in leadership and business culture.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a fundamental fork in the road for our industry, and businesses that fail to recognise the significance of this shift risk being left behind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n kabarsula SLOT <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tourism businesses that fail to embrace artificial intelligence could disappear within five years, Viator founder…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kabarsula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kabarsula.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tourism distribution faces major shake-up<\/strong><\/h2>\n