AI & Generative Engine Optimisation for Tourism

Speaker

Liz ward

About The Speaker

Liz is a digital strategist known for her work in building capability in the tourism and small business sectors through the many strategic projects and innovative training and mentoring approaches she has formulated and led.

Liz has 25 years’ experience specialising in business strategy, marketing and technology, uniquely blending knowledge and expertise for the benefit of businesses across Australia and the world. She is an innovator and a creator of break-through strategies.

She has pioneered many first-time strategic initiatives that have had lasting impacts including creating Queensland’s first destination websites and starting up the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse and being its CEO for over ten years.

Liz is the co-founder of the award-winning online learning and support platforms TourismTribe.com and Navii Digital which benefit small business in tourism and across all sectors on their journey to business growth and digital adaptation. She is a sought after consultant, keynote presenter, workshop trainer and mentor renowned for her practical advice and engaging communication style. Liz is also an experienced leader in the corporate world and professional board director.

Upcoming Event

AI & Generative Engine Optimisation for Tourism

  • 27th & 29th October 2026
  • Online
  • 1PM to 4PM
  • Rs 16,000 (MQA approved & HRDC refundable up to 90%)
Register Now
Course Details

Overview

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how travellers discover, compare and choose
tourism experiences. The shift is no longer simply about using AI to create marketing content. Search itself is changing, with AI tools summarising, shortlisting and recommending businesses before a traveller visits a website.

This practical program will help Mauritian tourism businesses understand what Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) means, how AI systems interpret their online presence, and what they can do now to increase the likelihood of being found, understood, trusted and recommended. The workshop is designed around tourism examples and practical actions rather than technical theory.

Course Objective

  • Understand how AI is changing tourism discovery, search, itinerary
    planning and booking behaviour.
  • Understand the difference between traditional SEO and GEO, and
    why both now matter.
  • See how AI assistants interpret a tourism business across its website,
    Google Business Profile, reviews and other third-party sources.
  • Identify the practical signals that make a tourism business easier for AI
    to find, understand, trust and recommend.
  • Leave with a short, achievable GEO action plan that can be
    implemented immediately.

Profile of participants

Hotel Owners, Marketing Officer, Digital Marketer, Managers of Hotel, Directors, Front Office managers, F&B, operations etc…

Course Details

Session 1: How AI is changing tourism discovery and search

  • The new visitor purchase journey: from linear search
    and website browsing to conversational discovery and AI-generated
    shortlists.
  • What AI is actually doing when it recommends a tourism business:
    summarising, matching, comparing and making choices on behalf
    of the traveller.
  • Google’s shift towards AI-led search and what that means for tourism
    visibility.
  • SEO versus GEO: what has changed, what remains important, and why
    ranking well in traditional search does not automatically mean being
    recommended by AI.
  • How AI understands a tourism business: websites, Google Business Profiles,
    reviews, third-party mentions, structured information and trust signals.
  • The new question for tourism businesses: not only ‘How will people find us?’
    but ‘Why would AI recommend us?’
 

Practical review of participant examples and common visibility gaps.
Between-session activity: Participants select three priority improvements.
They are encouraged to implement at least one quick win before Session 2.

Session 2: Making your tourism business AI-ready

  • Using your website as the source of truth: clearly explaining what you offer,
    where you are, who the experience is for and how to book.
  • Improving Google Business Profile information so it supports, rather than
    contradicts, the website.
  • Building trust signals that AI can recognise: reviews, accreditations, fresh
    information, consistent business details and authoritative third-party
    references.
  • Making content machine-readable: clear page structure, FAQs, entity-rich
    information and an introduction to schema markup.
  • Creating data-grounded content with verifiable facts, useful local detail
    and properly attributed information rather than generic AI-written copy.
  • Prompt-testing your own business in AI tools to understand how it is
    currently described, compared and recommended.
  • Using AI tools to help implement improvements efficiently while retaining
    human judgement and authentic local knowledge.
  • Developing a practical 30-day GEO action plan.

WHAT IS INCLUDED

  • Adaptation of Tourism Tribe’s current AI and GEO tourism workshop
    content for the Mauritian tourism context.
  • Two live 90-minute online training sessions delivered by Liz Ward.
  • Tourism-specific demonstrations, examples and participant discussion.
  • Digital copy of workshop materials.
  • Practical between-session activity and 30-day action planning..
Register Now