At today’s TransPerfect conference, we again heard that content is king, and in a world where customers visit websites, I could not agree more.
Good imagery and well-written, insightful content are essential for transforming Google-generated PPC clicks into bookings, but will this stay the same in a world dominated by AI Search?
All commentators predict that the arrival of MCP Servers, which enable Large Language Models (LLMs) to have agentic front ends that connect to thousands of suppliers to retrieve prices and availability, will mean that customers’ research will be conducted within the large language models themselves. Customers will no longer need to click out to suppliers’ websites to make bookings. Instead, it will act like Amazon, taking payments from customers or, to avoid ATOL package holiday regulations, use the customers’ payment details to either make component bookings via an MCP connection with suppliers or make one booking with an ATOL-bonded provider.
This evolution reminds me of the changes my own “On Holiday Group” (OHG) experienced during the “Dynamic Packaging” revolution that transformed the travel industry in the early 2000s.
Initially, we believed that the quality of our hotel images, descriptions, and video content would persuade travel businesses to use our website to book accommodation over our competitors. However, as the “Online Travel Agents” (OTAs) grew in size, our distribution rapidly shifted from human agents using our site to OTAs accessing our content and pricing via APIs (now replaced by MCPs).
These OTAs sourced the best content from suppliers like OHG, but then linked all suppliers’ prices to this content, and allocated bookings to the cheapest supplier.
So, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Large Language Models are likely to do the same. Therefore, what’s the point in investing in good hotel or resort content if it’s not going to be seen by your customers?
Neural River, my MCP consultancy, is instead advising travel companies on which “differentiators” besides content are likely to influence “Digital LLM” visitors, based on the assumption that their human users are unlikely to leave the AI Search engine to visit your site in future.
The core idea of AI Search is that it helps customers find the “Right” answer faster than Google’s ten blue link advertising directory. Therefore, it is likely to evaluate suppliers based on the speed of their responses and how well they meet their users’ needs.
Therefore, often “Less will be more” with “Cached” and “Curated” holiday recommendations, based on the top 10 holidays that match a customer’s requirements, which receive a better reception than showing the customer thousands of options, because they can be delivered faster and are more likely to meet the customer’s needs.
Initially, AI search terms will resemble those of Google, e.g., ‘Cheap Holidays to Spain,’ because this is how we have trained customers to search online.
However, as voice activation and the use of “Digital Twins” to shop for us increases, businesses will be faced with much more complex queries based on the customers’ age, wealth and preferences.
Don’t you think it’s strange that OTAs ask so few questions about a customer before making them search through thousands of holiday options? For me, this is one of the main reasons why homeworkers and high street agents stay in business.
However, this is all set to change with AI Search, and therefore, smart businesses will be investing heavily in harvesting the content that truly matters, which, in my opinion, is “Peer to Peer” reviews. This will allow them to classify holidays and present results in the same way Spotify or TikTok do by combining my purchasing indicators with a much broader “Lookalike” group based on age and demographics.
This is why TransPerfect, my hosts today, are continually refining their offerings and have decreased their revenue from translation-only services to 50% of their turnover, while exploring innovative new approaches such as enabling English-speaking customer service agents to manage multiple source markets using behind-the-scenes translation tools. Translations remain crucial for how UK businesses access new source markets. However, I believe it is the technology solutions provided by TransPerfect to support sales and customer service operations that will grow the fastest.
Standing still is not an option in the translation space or the travel sector, so what have you got planned, guys?