As GCC tourism rebounds, the real barrier is confidence, with UAE hotel occupancy still trailing last year’s levels despite flight schedules being largely restored. We sat down with Chris Gregory-Pasha, MENA Travel Lead at The Trade Desk, to unpack how the smartest marketers are closing that gap: from intent-based targeting and first-party data partnerships (including a new tie-up with Agoda) to what GCC-specific research reveals about traveller trust in AI-powered planning.
For B2B marketers, CMOs and agencies building travel campaigns in the region, Chris offers a clear-eyed view on where data-driven marketing is delivering real results — and where too many brands are still mistaking activity for strategy.
Excerpts from the discussion below:
The tourism recovery in the Middle East hasn’t exactly been a straight line. What are you seeing in the data that tells us where travellers’ confidence really stands today? And is there a gap between people saying they want to travel and actually booking?
There’s definitely a gap, and the hotel data makes it visible. UAE-wide occupancy is still running close to 28 percentage points below last year through June, according to CBRE, even with flight schedules largely restored. That tells me the constraint isn’t capacity, it’s confidence. Plenty of people say they want to travel here but turning that into an actual booking is a different decision, one that depends on feeling confident. Closing that distance, between saying and doing, is what decides this next stretch of recovery, and that’s a job for marketing, not operations.
There’s a lot of competition for the same traveller right now. Everyone has a destination to sell, an airline to fill and a tourism target to hit. So what are the smartest marketers doing differently to actually win that traveller?
The smartest ones have started treating this as a live targeting problem. They use first-party and intent signals, things like flight searches, itinerary building, and hotel comparisons to work out who’s genuinely close to a decision. Then they build media and messaging around that specific traveller rather than a generic “come visit” pitch. Why? Because precision beats volume. We saw this with Eurowings: a coordinated push across CTV, audio and digital out-of-home (DOOH) lifted unique reach by 22%, with measurable gains in consideration and favourability, not just impressions.
Are tourism brands still thinking too much about reach and awareness, when they should be thinking more about intent? What does a good travel audience look like today?
Honestly, yes, plenty still are, because reach is easy to buy and report on. A good travel audience today isn’t age or geography, it’s behaviour: someone comparing flight dates, checking room availability, or reading up on entry requirements for a new destination. That tells you far more about readiness to book than any demographic ever will. Programmatic buying on the open internet is what makes this practical: it lets brands build and adjust these intent-based audiences in real time, across premium publishers, rather than staying boxed inside one platform’s walled garden.
We talk a lot about data-driven marketing, but how much are brands actually using data to change what they say, who they target and when they show up? Where do you see tourism marketers still missing an opportunity?
A lot of what gets called data-driven marketing is really just data-informed channel selection, using numbers to pick where to advertise, not to change the message or the moment. The bigger opportunity, and the one most tourism marketers still miss, is using data to decide what to say and when: reassurance messaging while sentiment is shaky, aspirational storytelling once it’s recovering, a different sequence again depending on the source market. Agoda’s newly announced partnership with The Trade Desk points to where this is heading, putting first-party planning data to work well before someone ever reaches a booking page.
AI is now becoming part of how people discover, research and plan travel. But we’re also seeing some pretty public AI glitches and questions around accuracy. From what you’re seeing in the GCC, do people actually trust AI yet? And what does that mean for brands putting AI into the customer journey?
Trust in the GCC is actually stronger than most people assume. Research from Tourism Economics, presented at Arabian Travel Market, found 60% of UAE travellers trust AI to plan an entire trip, against 48% elsewhere. Globally though, that trust is patchier. While AI is accelerating discovery, most people double check AI-generated results elsewhere. AI can easily draft a travel itinerary, but people will still spend time on review sites and travel publishers before booking anything. For brands, that means AI earns its place in discovery and research, but the moment booking and payment enter the picture, people seek out verification on trustworthy sites.
Has the trust in AI been impacted since the last months’ glitches? If you were sitting with a GCC tourism CMO today and they asked: “What should we be doing differently with our next campaign?” — what would you tell them? And what would you tell them to stop doing?
I don’t think the recent glitches have fundamentally changed the role of AI in travel, but they are a useful reminder not to confuse automation with intelligence. Trust matters. Travellers are increasingly using AI to discover and plan, but they still need confidence in the brands and information behind those recommendations.
For a GCC tourism CMO, I’d say use AI aggressively behind the scenes, from understanding audiences and identifying intent to optimising media investment at scale. AI is already deeply embedded in AdTech. The Trade Desk’s Koa AI, for example, can analyse huge numbers of travel intent signals and optimise campaigns in real time, while keeping the marketer in control of the strategy.
I’d also ensure your website and published content are optimised for LLMs. As AI becomes part of travel discovery, being visible and accurately represented in those answers will become as important as traditional search.
But keep the storytelling human. Travel is emotional. People want real places and real experiences they can imagine themselves in. AI should make the advertising smarter, not become the advertising.
