Zsuzsa Deli-Gray (ed.)

Cases in Tourism Marketing III

The Prestidigitation: How Krasner Put the Machine Mind to Work

Circa two years ago, Krasner began a quiet experiment. The executive team didn't need to be sold on a complex, multi-million dollar "AI strategy." He started small, using nascent, publicly available AI models for a task that was both high-effort and low-yield: marketing. The experimentation began rather defensively, as a means to understand the new technology, but over the preceding eighteen months, the system had become genuinely potent. His hypothesis was simple: Instead of buying static lists of potential guests, could AI find his customers for him?

He began by feeding AI prompts designed to scan the public internet – social media, local news, forums, and event calendars – for intent. He wasn't just looking for "people who visit New Orleans". He was looking for, as he termed it, "event signals". A local company's press release announcing a record quarter? That's a potential sales retreat. A university department's social media post about an upcoming academic conference? That's a block of rooms. A bride-to-be's public forum post asking for "unique French Quarter wedding venues"? That's a qualified lead. He called this the "low data risk" approach. No sensitive guest data was used. This wasn't about analysing past stays; it was about prospecting for new opportunities in the vast, unstructured ocean of public data.

This intervention took place on three main fronts:

Market Research (The Invisible Eavesdropping): The first conjuring trick was to listen to the market, without the market being aware it was being listened to. The AI, like a ubiquitous, discreet intelligence agent, infiltrated the deepest recesses of the internet: Facebook groups, the tumultuous landscape of Twitter (or X), and the niche confines of professional forums. It did not merely monitor the competition; it observed where a large gathering, a congress, or even a substantial stag party was being organised. "Does anyone know a good hotel in central New Orleans?" an unsuspecting user might ask the ether, and the AI would already be taking diligent notes. This capability far exceeded the limitations of traditional Google searches. Unlike a simple keyword alert, the AI could understand the context and sentiment of the query, distinguishing a casual dreamer from a planner with an urgent, budget-approved need. It connected disparate breadcrumbs of information into a coherent lead.
Sales and Prospecting (The Targeted Courtship): Mere information, however, is insufficient; it must be utilised. Krasner's genius lay in directing the AI towards "prospecting." The algorithm not only identified upcoming events in the city but also assessed their size, duration, and, with ruthless precision, pinpointed the decision-makers and event planners. Instead of the sales team firing blindly with tedious template emails, the AI presented the target on a silver platter. This "platter" was, in effect, a fully formed strategic brief: 'Here is the event planner for the upcoming tech conference. Here are three pain points they publicly mentioned about their last event venue (slow Wi-Fi, poor audio-visual). Here is their company's new sustainability mandate. Your proposal should lead with our gigabit fibre and our new green-certified event package.'
IT and Operations (The Digital Factotum): Finally, Krasner applied the machine mind within his own domain: IT operations. Hotel systems (PMS, Autotask, et al.) are notorious for their complexity. Here, the AI became a sort of "super knowledge base", resolving configuration and compatibility nightmares in an instant. What previously took a team of engineers weeks to untangle, the AI managed during a coffee break. In modern business jargon, this is referred to as "project maximization", which translates roughly to: fewer headaches, more profit. This wasn't just about convenience; it was a direct line to profitability. Reducing system downtime by hours or days meant rooms and restaurants were never offline for booking. Completing a network upgrade in one-third the time meant less reliance on expensive external consultants and a faster rollout of new, revenue-generating guest services.

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2026

ISBN: 978 963 664 217 4

Marketing Turizmus

The publication of the third volume of Cases in Tourism Marketing is truly welcome news from both an educational and a professional perspective. Through real-world, timely, and thought-provoking cases, this collection helps readers – students and practitioners alike – gain a deeper understanding of the complex world of decision-making in tourism marketing. The case studies not only convey professional knowledge but also develop analytical skills, problem-solving abilities, and critical thinking. One of the volume’s key strengths is its focus on issues that define contemporary tourism, including the role of digitalization, artificial intelligence, destination branding, and stakeholder collaboration in tourism marketing. Long-awaited and highly relevant, this third volume is a worthy continuation of the previous collections and will undoubtedly serve as a valuable resource in higher education in tourism, while also being highly recommended to professionals who enjoy reflecting on challenges and opportunities beyond their own immediate field of expertise.

Tamara Ratz PhD

Director, Centre for International Relations, Kodolányi János University

Head of Tourism Department, Professor of Tourism

It is an honor for me to recommend this volume to everyone who wishes to understand tourism marketing not only in theory, but also through its real business and human dimensions. The worlds of tourism and hospitality have undergone fundamental changes in recent years, which makes case studies based on real market situations, decision-making dilemmas and current challenges especially valuable in supporting both learning and critical thinking. This book provides not only professional knowledge, but also encourages a complex mindset, creative problem-solving and the ability to think in connections — exactly the skills today’s tourism professionals need most. I wholeheartedly recommend this volume to students, educators and tourism professionals alike.

Judit Fodor (Liptai)

Group Director of Sales and Marketing, Danubius Hotels

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/deli-gray-cases-in-toursim-marketing-iii//

BibTeX EndNote Mendeley Zotero