At World Travel Market London, speakers emphasized that authentic content and original photography from bloggers are likely to yield better results than AI-generated material.
Blogger Filipe Gomes, who set up Alma de Viajante 20 years ago, conducted an experiment to compare AI generated content with his own material. He told the WTM London marketing summit: “I decided to create a website with AI generated content. If it works, it’s easy money. If it doesn’t work, perfect. That means I can keep doing my normal travel blogging.
“I generated 30-40, posts, and in the first few days, the articles ranked, but then they disappeared completely, and I was happy about it. I want to believe that good content will always perform better than bad content or AI generated content. I will keep going to places and write about my experiences.”
Malcolm Archer, Head of Sales at Stay22, commented: “It is extremely validating that good content and good contextual content will still continue to drive results.”
One of his top tips for bloggers was about authenticity, adding: “Be yourself, if that’s your brand; stand up for what your brand stands for.”
Cora Harrison, who has blogged at Inside Our Suitcase since 2017, advised delegates to use original images. “Make sure you’re taking your own photos. They don’t have to be the best photos in the world. They can be taken on your iPhone. But original photos really, really matter in a world of AI content,” she said.
When AI was emerging, she decided to diversify, so she developed her social media channels which helped her to build brand partnerships.
“Now I am able to use those social platforms – Instagram, TikTok, Facebook – to push audiences to my website,” she said. “I am now benefiting from a much more diverse traffic source. I’m no longer solely relying on Google, and that means that I have much more stable revenue from my website. I am also getting revenue directly from Facebook.”
Anticipating the rise of AI, she chose to diversify by building her social media channels, which enabled her to secure valuable brand partnerships.
Bloggers also shared advice on managing challenges from Google Core updates, which impacted website traffic by lowering many sites’ search rankings.
Julie Falconer, who set up A Lady In London in 2007, said she was lucky that her site was not too badly hit by Google updates. “One of the bonuses of starting way back in 2007 is that I always focused on social media,” she said, pointing out that her blog receives a lot of traffic from Instagram, Pinterest and other platforms.
“I always prioritised affiliate marketing and brand partnerships, and, more recently, monetising directly on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, with earning through advertising, when they invite you into the programme. My Instagram account is my biggest marketing channel for my blog. Captions have clear calls to action.”
She urged bloggers to experiment: “There are many different ways you can monetise. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. What works for me might not work for somebody else.”
Nonetheless, the panelists acknowledged that AI can play a beneficial role in monetizing blogs. Stay22, for example, offers Let Me Allez, an AI-driven travel affiliate platform that provides personalized options to visitors clicking on links, boosting the likelihood of bookings. It also automatically repairs broken affiliate links.
Archer said: “This year, we’ve reached one billion users through our platform. We’ve also generated $500 million in bookings. It’s been an absolutely phenomenal journey.”
Gomes said using Stay22’s AI service had been a “game-changer” for him, commenting: “It took me five months to reach the amount of money I made last year.”
The marketing summit was opened by Michael Ball, co-founder of Traverse, a community for content creators.
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