For years, the global travel industry lived by a simple digital truth: rank well on Google, appear on an online travel agency, and the bookings will follow. The rules were clear. The funnel was familiar. Clicks were king.
That era is now ending not with a bang, but with an algorithm.
At the centre of this transition stands a new breed of travel marketer, part technologist, part behavioural economist. One of the most closely watched among them is Brennen Bliss, the 26-year-old founder of Austin-based travel marketing agency Propellic, recently named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 USA list for Marketing & Advertising.
Bliss’s selection is not particularly remarkable because he is young, Silicon Valley is thick with youth, but because his firm is the only AI-dedicated travel marketing agency on the entire list. That, in an industry being steadily reshaped by artificial intelligence, is the detail that matters.
Founded in 2014 when Bliss was just 14, Propellic has moved from adolescent website design into the serious end of global travel economics, managing eight-figure advertising budgets for destinations, tour operators and hotel groups worldwide. In 2025, it was named a Top 100 Marketing Firm on the Inc. 5000 list, and one of the Top 50 Companies in Austin, Texas, with three consecutive years of 100 per cent revenue growth.
Impressive numbers, indeed. But the deeper story is structural: the infrastructure of global travel discovery itself is changing.
The Death of the Click
The industry’s tectonic shift is being driven not by Instagram influencers or slick destination videos, but by Google’s AI Mode. This conversational search interface collapses what once took dozens of digital touchpoints into a single, synthesised response.
As Bliss puts it:
“AI is transforming the way travelers search, plan, and book, ushering travel companies into a new era where visibility is determined before a guest ever reaches a website. With Google’s AI Mode compressing the traditional booking funnel into a single conversational journey, the classic race for clicks is disappearing, and travel companies now compete to become the option AI recommends first.”
In the old model, travellers compared dozens of links, tabs and platforms. In the new one, the decision is increasingly pre-sorted by machine logic before the consumer even knows alternatives exist.
That is not a cosmetic change. It is an economic one.
What the Data Now Shows
To understand how profound that shift has become, Propellic partnered with Eric Van Buskirk, founder of Clickstream Solutions, and digital strategist Kevin Indig to analyse real-world behaviour inside Google’s AI Mode. The study examined more than 300 actual booking journeys conducted through AI-powered search interfaces.
The results were quietly disruptive.
Fewer than 10 per cent of observed bookings were completed through online travel agencies. By contrast, 56 per cent were made directly with hotels or activity suppliers, a reversal of the OTA-dominated booking landscape that has defined travel for two decades.
Equally significant was the rise of Google Business Profiles as the primary point of traveller engagement. Users now assess photos, pricing and trust indicators inside AI-generated responses, often without ever visiting a brand’s website.
In practical terms, that means discoverability is no longer controlled by who wins at traditional SEO. It is controlled by who the AI trusts.
The comprehensive research is publicly available at: https://www.propellic.com/research.
From Rankings to Behavioural Architecture
Propellic’s approach reflects that new reality. It is no longer enough to “rank well”. The entire consumer decision journey must now be engineered backward from the moment of intent.
“What sets Propellic apart is that we don’t just execute SEO or media buying,” Bliss explains. “We help travel brands build discoverability engines that generate bookings long-term, not just clicks. Most agencies focus on tactics like rankings or impressions, but we start with how travelers actually make decisions. Using search intent data and traveler journey mapping, we reverse-engineer where a brand needs to appear to succeed.”
It is a subtle but radical reframing. In effect, marketing has become a form of applied behavioural science guided by machines.
A Personal Motivation Beneath the Algorithms
For all the data and automation, Bliss’s motivation is not purely technical. His interest in travel as an industry anchor is tied to lived experience.
“Being a member of the LGBTQ+ community has shown me how important acceptance and diversity are. Driven by this belief, I decided to focus on travel marketing because travel is a force for good it exposes people to new destinations, challenges the way they were brought up, and introduces them to different cultures and perspectives…”
It is not a fashionable sentiment, but it is a revealing one. Travel, after all, is not merely transactional. At its best, it reshapes how people see one another — a human trait now being operationalised through algorithmic systems of astonishing reach.
Why Forbes Took Notice
The Forbes 30 Under 30 Marketing & Advertising list for 2026 selects founders and executives 29 and under, reshaping the economics of communication and consumer engagement. Nominees are sourced from alumni referrals, public submissions, independent research and third-party judging. Bliss had not previously appeared on any regional Forbes list.
His public Forbes profile is available at:
https://www.forbes.com/profile/brennen-bliss/?list=30under30-marketing-advertising/.
What likely attracted attention is not simply growth, but timing. Bliss and Propellic sit at the convergence of three forces now reshaping global travel: artificial intelligence, direct booking economics, and behavioural data.
What Comes Next for Travel
Flashy campaigns will not mark the next phase, but by something far less visible: systems competing for algorithmic endorsement. Hotels are no longer just competing against one another; they are competing for recommendations within AI itself.
The winners will be those who understand that visibility is now earned before the traveller opens a browser tab.
That is not a future problem. It is already here.
by Prae Lee – (c) 2025
Read Time: 6 minutes.
About the Writer
You can tell a lot about a person by how they handle a busy Bangkok morning. Prae Lee doesn’t rush; she glides through it. There’s a calm certainty about her, the sort that comes from knowing where you come from and where you’re going.
Educated at Chulalongkorn University, she took her business degree with the quiet pride of someone who believes in doing things correctly. Her travels for further study in Singapore and Australia didn’t change her; they polished what was already there: curiosity, discipline, and grace.
She returned to her family business in Bangkok, breathing a little modern life into it. She handled social media with the intuition of someone who listens and sells with the gentle persistence that the Thais do so well.
Prae doesn’t make a fuss, but everything she touches shines brighter.
Now part of the Global Travel Media family, Prae brings authenticity and quiet confidence to her writing, drawing from a life steeped in culture, travel, and connection.
