Hotels Can Use AI Video for Everything Except the Room

In the summer of 2025, an elderly couple drove more than 300 kilometres from Kuala Lumpur to ride a cable car in rural Malaysia. They had seen it in a video: a TV host, a scenic ride, happy passengers giving interviews. The cable car, the host and the passengers were all generated. When a hotel employee told them there was nothing to see, they refused to believe it.

That story is the worst case for tourism and AI. It is also a useful map. Travel is sold on images of places people have not seen yet, which makes it one of the sectors where AI video can help the most, and where it can do the most damage.

Travelers choose on video, and they notice AI

In research published by Expedia Group in October 2025, based on a survey of 7,000 travelers in seven markets including Canada and France, 71% said video had influenced their travel decisions, against 24% for static images. The same study found that 64% had noticed a travel ad they believed was generated by AI, and that fully AI-generated influencers and landscapes left viewers uneasy, skeptical and annoyed.

What travelers say about video and AI

Share of travelers surveyed, seven markets including Canada

What travelers say about video and AI

Statement	Share of travelers
Video influenced their travel decisions	71%
Static images influenced their travel decisions	24%
Noticed a travel ad they believe was generated by AI	64%
Don’t mind how content is made as long as it is useful	16%

Only 16% said they don’t mind how content is made as long as it is useful. A larger group, 41%, said AI content is useful but needs human input. Travelers will accept AI in the mix. What they punish is being fooled about the place they are about to pay for.

The rule: generate the story, film the product

A hotel room, the view from the balcony, the pool, the trail, the plate at the restaurant: those are promises. If a guest arrives and finds something else, the video lied, whatever tool made it. Film them or photograph them as they are.

Everything around the promise is fair game: the mood of a season you cannot shoot this month, the story of how the inn was built a century ago, an animated map of the region, a character who carries the viewer from the train station to the lobby. None of it pretends to be the room.

Five uses that hold up

The next season. A ski resort selling winter in August, a lakeside inn promoting fall colours in spring. The place is real, and AI can show the season that is coming, as long as it looks like that place in that season.

History and legend. Heritage sites have stories nobody filmed. Reenactments that used to need a period set and a crew are now within reach of a regional museum or a family-run inn.

Before the doors open. A hotel under construction or renovation can start selling before the drywall is up, as long as the film is clearly presented as a projection. The same logic works for a plant that does not exist yet.

Every language. Tourism speaks to visitors from everywhere. One film, several voice tracks. What that takes in French and English.

Volume for social. In Expedia Group’s lab tests, scenes of 2 to 9 seconds let viewers best see and absorb what was on screen. Short, frequent, varied clips fit that rhythm, and AI makes the variation affordable.

Someone still checks the facts

In 2023, VisitDenmark ran a campaign in which AI brought the Mona Lisa and other famous landmarks to life, telling tourists to skip the crowds and visit Denmark instead. The scripts were written by AI. The team, said press manager Kathrine Lind Gustavussen, only removed the parts that were too long or “simply not true”.

That is the job in one sentence. The machine produces. Someone who knows the place decides what stays.

Before you publish

Three checks. Could a guest standing in the real place recognize what the video shows? Is every generated scene that could pass for real footage labeled as such? Did someone who knows the destination watch it from start to finish? If the answer is yes three times, AI video is one of the best tools a hotel or a destination has had in years.