Destination Sunday: Your Destination Has a Story You’ve Never Read
How AI, Google, and Reddit shape what visitors believe about your town before they arrive.
A couple is planning a long weekend. Tuesday night. Couch. Two screens.
They don’t start on your website. They start on Google, an AI summary, and a Reddit thread from 2022. In 12 minutes, they build a version of your town from sources no one at the destination has reviewed.
That’s the version they’re deciding from. You’ve never seen it assembled.
The assumption that keeps this invisible
Most destinations assume: we have a brand, a website, a social presence. We’re managing our story.
Here’s where it breaks. Your published story is one input among dozens. For a growing share of travelers, it’s not even the first one they encounter. The AI summary, the cached blog post, the old listicle that still ranks on page one. That composite is the working draft of your destination’s identity for most people researching a trip.
Nobody at the destination has assembled it to see what it says. Not because anyone failed. Because this gap sits between job descriptions. And until recently, it wasn’t anyone’s…