Trust, connection and the changing travel experience

I recently attended the Mumbrella Travel Marketing Summit in Sydney, where this year's theme, "Connection is the Destination," covered how people find travel inspiration, what they trust, how brands build loyalty and the changing roles of measurement and AI.

I spend most of my time working with research and insights teams, so I tend to listen for the research questions behind these conversations. There were plenty throughout the day.

Gareth O'Neill's session, "The Uncomfortable Truth: Is AI Shutting Your Brand Out?", looked at AI as a new source of travel information. "The Travel Trust Stack" explored the mix of editorial content, creator recommendations, search, social and AI assistants, while "Creators Are the New Front Door" focused on TikTok and YouTube as places where people search for destinations and experiences.

A traveller might first see a destination in a TikTok video, ask an AI assistant about the best time to visit, read an article, check reviews, talk to a friend and eventually book somewhere else. Ask later what influenced the decision and the answer may not match the digital trail. How do we know which parts of that process actually affected the decision?

What happens on the trip doesn't stay on the trip

One of the sessions I particularly enjoyed was "Connection Is the Experience — Why Travellers are Choosing Meaning over Attractions," featuring perspectives from Tourism Australia, Luxury Lodges of Australia and Tasmanian Walking Company.

The discussion looked at people's desire to connect with nature, culture, communities and the places they visit. It also made me think about how closely the experience itself is tied to travel marketing.

A traveller's experience becomes someone else's source of information. People photograph it, review it, post about it and recommend it. A moment on one person's holiday might be the first time somebody else hears about a destination.

There is a lot researchers can learn by looking at the gap between what a destination promises and what somebody experiences once they arrive. What were they expecting? Which parts did they tell their friends about? Did the things the brand thought would matter actually matter? What people say during a trip can also be quite different from what they remember weeks or months later.

Trust kept coming up, although not always by that name

"The Travel Trust Stack" looked at the sources people trust when planning travel. Philippa Durant's "Purpose Can Equal Profit" explored whether values affect what people book, while Todd Babiak's "The Story Behind Your Brand" focused on how a brand's story and identity show up in what it does.

The creator discussion raised similar questions. People may trust someone because they know their tastes, have followed them for years or find their recommendations useful. That's a different relationship from the one they have with an editorial publication, tourism organisation or hotel brand. For researchers, asking whether somebody trusts a brand only gets us so far. I'd want to know what they trust it to do and what created that belief.

Paul Hewett's "You're Measuring the Wrong Things: What Matters Now" looked at what marketers can actually observe as platforms retain more data, privacy rules reduce some signals and AI changes how people search. The digital trail is getting harder to follow as travel decisions are spread across more places.

Hewett talked about identifying the moments that affect customer decisions and understanding them in the context of the market. A clickstream can show that somebody searched, visited or booked, but it can't tell us what first sparked their interest, what else they considered or why they made their final choice.

It also made me think about how much research travel organisations already have. Trackers, campaign studies, customer experience programs, brand research and individual projects may each hold part of the answer, often commissioned at different times by different teams or research partners. Looking back across that work can sometimes answer a question without starting another study.

What do travellers actually want from loyalty?

The "Beyond Points" panel looked at what travellers want from loyalty programs, covering points and dollars alongside perks, access, experiences and recognition.

I liked that the discussion included the fairly basic question of whether consumers need another loyalty program. It's easy to design a program around what a business wants customers to do. Research can turn the question around and look at whether the proposed exchange makes sense from the customer's side.

The answer probably isn't the same for everyone. Someone who travels weekly for work has a different relationship with a hotel or airline than someone saving for one major holiday. Even the same person's priorities can change depending on why they're travelling.

Edward Bell of Cathay Pacific closed the summit with "Marketing in an Age of Permanent Disruption," drawing on the experience of an airline dealing with global events, changes in demand and decisions that sometimes have to be made without complete information.

His session was a reminder of how quickly the context around all of these questions can change. A destination, experience or trip that makes sense to someone today may look quite different when prices change, confidence falls or an unexpected event changes their plans.

I left Sydney thinking about how much travel brands already know about their customers, often spread across trackers, campaign studies, customer experience programs and years of individual research projects. I'd like to spend more time looking at what we can learn when those pieces are brought together and revisited as new questions come up.