Dubai's tourism AI chief told Arabian Travel Market that AI cannot work in silos, and that the value comes when destinations, airlines, hotels and government move together. The travel agency, missing from that list, already does the joining-up by hand: the desks I worked list more than 150 destination management companies across 31 countries.
Key facts
- More than 150 destination management companies across 31 countries in the contact books of the desks I worked — the author's operations archive.
- Four parties the keynote said must move together: destinations, airlines, hotels and government — Dr Marwan Alzarouni, TradeArabia.
- “Traditional search rankings are no longer enough” — Dr Marwan Alzarouni, CEO, AI at Dubai's Department of Economy and Tourism.
The news. Arabian Travel Market opened its Future Stage, part of the newly launched ATM Travel Tech, with a keynote from Dr Marwan Alzarouni, CEO, AI at Dubai's Department of Economy and Tourism. His first point was about discovery: "Traditional search rankings are no longer enough." Dubai, he said, has to be represented "with timely, accurate and authoritative information across our entire tourism ecosystem". His second point was about structure: "You cannot use AI in silos." The value comes, in his words, when destinations, airlines, hotels and government "all move together".
Who is missing from Dubai's AI list?
Destinations, airlines, hotels, government. The agency is not on it, and that is not a slight worth complaining about. It describes where the agency already sits: between all four, doing by hand the joining-up the keynote calls for. What he describes is a goal for a whole technology stack. A desk does it every day, one request at a time, by phone, by email and from memory.
A Gulf family's summer in Europe touches a visa, a flight, two hotels and a transfer. Each lives in a different system run by a different company. The desk is the place where they become one trip, and the place that gets the phone call when one of them moves.
How is the desk's network the integration?
In the contact books of the desks I worked, more than 150 destination management companies are listed across 31 countries: the local partners who arrange the ground. That network is what integrating AI "across your partners and your systems" has to reproduce before it can replace anything: people who know whom to call, and a record of what was agreed with each of them. When something changes halfway through a trip, the desk does not look for a system. It looks for a name and a phone number.
Why does it matter for the agency?
When a destination makes itself readable to AI, the easy questions get answered without you. The hard ones stay: which combination, which hotel, what happens when the flight changes. They need someone who can reach every party in the chain. Write your network down and keep it current: who confirms, who fixes, who answers at night. That record is the joined-up layer the keynote is asking for, and an agency can hold it today. Do not wait to be invited to the table. An agency with its network written down is already sitting at it.
Source: TradeArabia — ATM … Future Stage explores AI's role in reshaping global travel.