Atout France's deployment of AI exemplifies how DMOs are strategically leveraging AI through data and curated content strategies.
The implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in destination marketing has reached a critical inflection point, where early tactical experiments are giving way to strategic, infrastructure-led approaches. Eve Le Gall, Deputy Director, Marketing & Partnerships, shared insights into Atout France's deployment of MarIAnne, an AI travel concierge launched in March 2024, reflecting deeper strategic thinking about the role of AI in destination representation. In positioning the system as a knowledgeable companion rather than a search tool, Atout France creates opportunities for storytelling, cultural interpretation and emotional connection that transcend functional trip planning.
The implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in destination marketing has reached a critical inflection point, where early tactical experiments are giving way to strategic, infrastructure-led approaches. Eve Le Gall, Deputy Director, Marketing & Partnerships, shared insights into Atout France's deployment of MarIAnne, an AI travel concierge launched in March 2024, reflecting deeper strategic thinking about the role of AI in destination representation. In positioning the system as a knowledgeable companion rather than a search tool, Atout France creates opportunities for storytelling, cultural interpretation and emotional connection that transcend functional trip planning.
The implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in destination marketing has reached a critical inflection point, where early tactical experiments are giving way to strategic, infrastructure-led approaches. Eve Le Gall, Deputy Director, Marketing & Partnerships, shared insights into Atout France's deployment of MarIAnne, an AI travel concierge launched in March 2024, reflecting deeper strategic thinking about the role of AI in destination representation. In positioning the system as a knowledgeable companion rather than a search tool, Atout France creates opportunities for storytelling, cultural interpretation and emotional connection that transcend functional trip planning.
Research from Kantar reveals that whilst 40% of global travellers have already used AI-based tools for trip planning, with 62% expressing openness to future adoption, a significant trust gap persists. Among non-users, 55% cite a lack of trust as their primary barrier to AI engagement; a figure that underscores the critical importance of building credible, transparent AI systems rather than simply deploying the latest available technology.
This trust deficit presents both a challenge and an opportunity for destination management organisations (DMOs). Unlike commercial travel platforms that prioritise conversion metrics, DMOs possess unique advantages in building trustworthy AI platforms through access to authoritative data sources, governmental credibility and strategic mandates for equitable destination development. Atout France's approach to MarIAnne demonstrates how these institutional advantages can be leveraged to create AI systems that serve broader destination management goals, aligning with the primary desire of visitors to use AI for creating itineraries optimised to personal interests.
The timing of MarIAnne's launch proved strategically astute, coinciding with France's preparation for the 2024 Paris Olympics when destination visibility and visitor experience optimisation became national priorities. This context provided both the budgetary justification for substantial digital infrastructure investment and the strategic imperative to showcase France's technological excellence on a global stage.
MarIAnne's technical architecture reflects a deliberate strategic choice to prioritise data sovereignty and quality over expedient implementation. The system employs a hybrid AI approach, combining ChatGPT-4o with Mistral 7B through LangChain orchestration, developed in partnership with French startup Genial. This sovereign technology strategy ensures that both the intellectual property and operational control remain within French jurisdiction; a consideration that carries particular weight for government agencies managing sensitive tourism data.
Supporting the AI model, the system's strength lies in its data foundation. MarIAnne draws from four carefully curated sources that collectively represent decades of institutional knowledge and quality assurance. The primary data source, DATAtourisme, functions as a national system collecting open data on official tourism experience listings, encompassing 350,000 qualified activities complete with geolocation data. This database represents a collaborative effort across France's entire tourism vertical, from local tourist offices to regional tourism committees, creating a comprehensive and continuously updated national tourism inventory. This methodology encourages a positive feedback loop whereby businesses are incentivised to maintain high-quality data within DATAtourisme to ensure visibility within AI-generated recommendations. In addition, star ratings provide verifiable insights into accommodation and experience quality.
Complementing this foundational dataset, the system integrates Tourism and Handicap data — a unique accessibility rating system managed by Atout France that provides official certifications for tourism businesses across auditory, cognitive, motor and visual accessibility categories. This integration demonstrates how strategic AI implementation can advance inclusive tourism whilst providing differentiated value to users with specific accessibility needs.
The final data pillar consists of extensive editorial content, with over 3,000 articles crafted by bloggers and journalists with a focus on lesser-known destinations and sustainable travel. This editorial foundation proved crucial in addressing algorithmic bias towards popular destinations, negating one of AI's most persistent challenges. The strategic deployment of this editorial content required considerable effort in prompt engineering and system training. Rather than simply instructing the AI to avoid popular destinations, the system was trained on human-curated itineraries that demonstrated how to balance visitor satisfaction with destination management objectives. This approach created a sustainable mechanism for promoting destination diversity whilst maintaining authenticity and visitor appeal.
As Eve observed, the travel planning landscape hasn't evolved substantially in twenty years, with traditional search mechanisms failing to deliver the personalised, contextual guidance that travellers increasingly expect. The concept of Search Generative Optimisation (SGO) represents the natural evolution of destination marketing, where AI visibility depends on structured data and compelling content rather than traditional SEO techniques. This transformation carries profound implications for destination competitiveness. As AI assistants become primary interfaces for travel planning, destinations must ensure their offer is properly structured, contextualised and integrated within these systems.
MarIAnne's user experience architecture reveals elaborate thinking about how AI can enhance traditional destination discovery mechanisms. Rather than presenting users with a simple chat interface, the platform is intuitively designed with a visual destination selection through an interactive map, allowing users to specify the region they'd like to visit, budgets, travel companions and even hotel addresses for personalised recommendations. The platform's multilingual capabilities, spanning 15 languages, reflect Atout France's strategic focus on international markets during the inspiration phase of travel planning.
This approach recognises that effective AI implementation requires understanding the multimodal nature of trip planning. The conversational chatbot functionality serves as just one component within a broader experience ecosystem that includes visual mapping, itinerary export capabilities and social sharing features; functionalities that emerged from user feedback rather than initial technical specifications. Such an all-encompassing approach enables a clean user interface that serves both inspiration and planning.
Since launch, MarIAnne has generated 25,000 sessions, resulting in 11,000 complete itineraries. More tellingly, these interactions have exposed over 125,000 points of interest, with gastronomy, heritage and nature emerging as the dominant themes of interest. The 92% satisfaction rate acts as a strong signal that the platform creates genuine value that meets user expectations whilst advancing Atout France's strategic objectives.
These metrics reveal the compound effect of strategic AI implementation. Each itinerary generation represents a multiplier effect whereby lesser-known destinations gain visibility through authoritative recommendations. The performance data also validates Atout France's user research methodology, with Eve noting that outcomes aligned closely with pre-launch expectations, reflecting the value of extensive market research in informing system design. This alignment suggests that strategic AI implementation requires a deep understanding of user needs rather than technology-first approaches. Iterative development will ensure continuous platform improvements, such as focusing on passion-based itinerary creation and real-time travel updates, including integrating live event data and adapting travel plans based on flight delays or weather.
Deputy Director, Marketing & Partnerships
Atout France
Created for destinations around the world, this programme will provide the insight to help you become a sustainability leader within your organisation.
Designed to teach you how to master must-have tools and acquire essential skills to succeed in managing your destination or organisation, be ready to challenge all of your assumptions.
Designed to teach you how to master must-have tools and acquire essential skills to succeed in managing your destination or organisation, be ready to challenge all of your assumptions.
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