New TOURISE and LIONS Advisory Study Reveals How Creativity Creates a Commercial Advantage for Destination Growth

• 50% of travelers cannot remember the last advertisement they saw for a tourism company or destination, with a further 7% unsure

• Tourism faces an $11 billion marketing investment gap: restoring the category's share of voice to 3% would require global travel and transport ad spend to reach $43.4 billion by 2027

• 63% of Large Language Model (LLM) visibility is driven by long-term brand equity, compared with 22% from current marketing activity and 11% from citation volume

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, October 21, 2026--TOURISE, the world's premier platform for shaping the future of global tourism, today released IDEAS That Travel, a new report developed in collaboration with LIONS Advisory. The study finds that while travel demand is rising, tourism brands are competing for attention in a more fragmented, socially driven and AI-mediated environment, where visibility alone is no longer enough to secure preference and growth.

"Travelers are discovering destinations earlier and through more channels than ever, from social feeds and creators to communities and AI tools. That raises the bar for tourism brands. Creativity, distinctiveness and trust are becoming central to how destinations earn attention, build preference and remain relevant across the entire traveler journey," said His Excellency Ahmed Al Khateeb, Minister of Tourism of Saudi Arabia and Chairman of TOURISE.

IDEAS That Travel draws on an online survey of 8,374 consumers across 13 markets who had traveled internationally in the previous 12 months, conducted in December 2025, alongside in-depth interviews with global industry leaders and analysis of LIONS' marketing research and case studies.

Interviewees include Tony Fernandes, CEO of Capital A and Co-Founder of AirAsia; David Droga, Vice Chair of Accenture; Gonzalo Brujó, CEO and Global Chairman of Interbrand; and Joanne Chehab, Head of MENA Global Business Solutions at ByteDance / TikTok.

The opportunity is significant, but so is the competition. Thirty-nine percent of travelers expect to travel more in the next 12 months than they did in 2025, rising to 51% of Gen Z and 47% of Millennials. Yet tourism marketing is struggling to stay memorable and distinctive: 60% of travelers say travel ads look similar, 43% find it hard to distinguish between travel brands, and 50% cannot remember the last tourism advertisement they saw, with a further 7% unsure.

At the same time, 55% of travelers already use AI in holiday planning and 62% expect to use it more often over the next year. The report argues that future growth will depend on brands building relevance before travelers enter the booking funnel, and doing so consistently across human and AI-led discovery.