I use AI, but I also want the people creating original travel information to be able to keep doing their work. This letter is my invitation to AI companies to talk about fair compensation and a partnership that makes sense for creators too.
Dear AI companies,
I am writing as Yeison, a travel creator who has spent years visiting destinations, testing services, talking with local people, taking photographs, and trying to give travelers information they can trust.
I am not writing because I want AI to disappear, I use AI myself, it can help travelers understand information faster, compare options, and start planning a trip with less stress, it can also help creators organize ideas, improve our work, and serve people better.
But the current system is broken, it is taking valuable human work, turning it into a convenient answer, and removing much of the path that allowed the person who created that work to keep doing it.
That will not work forever.
The people behind the information
When an AI answer tells a traveler which neighborhood is best, how to get from an airport to a hotel, whether a tour is suitable for children, or what to expect at a destination, that answer did not appear from nowhere.
Somebody had to go there, somebody had to pay for transportation, accommodation, equipment, entrance fees, and the time needed to research, somebody had to notice that a road had changed, a business had closed, a pickup point had moved, or an experience was not what the marketing promised.
That is the work travel bloggers, journalists, photographers, videographers, and local creators do, we do not only collect information, we experience it, question it, compare it, update it, and stand behind it when a reader asks for help.
Travel information becomes old very quickly, a guide written three years ago may still look useful online even when important details are no longer correct, fresh and reliable information requires people to keep traveling, checking, and reporting.
AI needs this work, travelers need it too.
The old system gave creators a reason to do the work
For many years, the arrangement was simple, a creator published helpful information, a search engine sent visitors, and the creator earned income through advertising, affiliate links, direct services, products, or partnerships.
It was not a perfect system, but it created an incentive, if a creator did good work, helped people, and built trust, there was a chance to turn that work into a business, that income helped pay for the next trip, the next update, and sometimes a small team.
AI changes that exchange, a system can gather knowledge from many creators, combine it into one answer, and satisfy the traveler before the traveler ever reaches the original websites.
A citation is better than no citation, but a citation alone is not a business model if very few travelers open it.
Pew Research Center found that Google users clicked a traditional search result on 8 percent of visits with an AI summary, compared with 15 percent of visits without one, links inside the AI summaries received clicks on only 1 percent of visits in that study, you can read the research and methodology here.
That does not prove that AI is responsible for every traffic decline, Search rankings, competition, and travel demand matter too, but it shows the problem clearly, an answer can use the value of creator work while sending almost none of that value back.
Why the system will fail without a monetary incentive
Data centers need electricity, engineers, hardware, and investment, AI companies understand that an advanced system cannot survive without the resources that keep it running.
Original travel information also needs resources, a creator cannot keep researching destinations, returning to update guides, and producing useful photos and videos if there is no realistic way to make a living from the work.
Eventually, creators will travel less for research, they will update less, some will move to other work, new creators will see that the time, cost, and risk are not worth it.
Then AI companies will have less fresh human information to work with, they will rely more on old pages, copied content, promotional material, and information produced by other AI systems, the answers may still sound confident, but they will become less useful, less personal, and less accurate.
This is not only a problem for bloggers, the same question affects journalists, musicians, photographers, programmers, teachers, researchers, and many other people whose original work helps make AI useful.
Technology should not remove every economic incentive for humans to create the knowledge that technology depends on.
Blocking AI is a choice, but it is not a complete solution
Some creators will decide to block AI crawlers, they should have that right, and their choice should be respected.
But blocking everything is difficult for a small creator, it can remove opportunities to be discovered by new readers and travelers, it also does not solve the bigger question of how the creator can participate in the new way people search for information.
Training a model, indexing a page, retrieving a page because a user asked a question, and sending a visitor to a website are different actions, creators need clear controls for each one.
There is progress, Anthropic documents separate crawlers for model development, search, and user requested access, Google has also introduced a control for participation in its generative Search features, these choices are important, but a switch to block or allow access is not enough by itself.
Creators need a choice that is connected to a real opportunity, not a choice between losing control and losing their future.
One Proposal for a True Creator Partnership System
My main proposal is simple, AI companies should create a clear and open creator partnership system for original human work.
It should not be limited to the biggest news companies or the largest websites, a local expert with years of firsthand knowledge can be extremely valuable to a traveler, even if that expert does not have millions of visitors.
A serious partnership system should include five things.
- Clear permission: creators should be able to decide separately whether their work can be used for training, search, and AI answers.
- Visible attribution: travelers should be able to see who created the information and easily visit the original source.
- Meaningful referrals: AI answers should actively send travelers to the creator when the creator provides something valuable that the answer cannot replace, such as current details, original maps, photos, booking help, special benefits, or local expertise.
- Economic participation: when an AI company repeatedly uses a creator’s original work or earns money from a booking, referral, subscription, or other transaction connected to that work, the creator needs a fair way to share in that value.
- Support for new verification: AI companies should help fund the original reporting and updates that keep travel information accurate, including work that does not lead directly to a sale.
I am not saying that every answer needs a complicated payment system, I am saying that we need a real structure, with transparent rules, clear reporting, and a way for independent creators to participate.
The exact model can be discussed, it could include licensing, revenue sharing, referrals, paid assignments, or another approach, the important point is that companies should not build a product from creator work and then tell creators that visibility is the only value they receive.
Visibility does not pay for a research trip, a citation does not update a guide, a promise that AI will bring more traffic does not help if the visitor never arrives.
AI can send travelers to creators instead of replacing them
There is a better future than simply taking answers and keeping the relationship with the traveler.
A traveler may ask an AI system a broad question about Costa Rica, Paris, Japan, or any destination, the AI can provide an introduction, but if the traveler needs a current map, an honest hotel comparison, a detailed itinerary, a local discount, availability, or personal help choosing the right experience, that is a real reason to send the traveler to the creator who has that value.
This is already part of how I think about building a travel business, in my article about travel bloggers and AI, I wrote that the human brings the experience, judgment, responsibility, and trust, AI can bring speed, organization, and a new way to help travelers discover useful work.
It can be a partnership, but a partnership has to benefit both sides.
Creators should keep making content that is difficult to replace, firsthand experience, original photography, recent verification, local relationships, and help with real travel decisions, I have also shared my thoughts on creating travel content that helps readers and supports a business.
At the same time, AI companies need to make sure that their systems are not taking the best work from creators while removing the business reason for that work to continue.
This is an invitation to answer
I do not expect one company to solve every issue for every kind of creator, different industries have different rights, costs, and business models.
But I do expect the companies building the future of information to recognize that this question cannot be ignored, the internet that trained and supports AI was not made by algorithms alone, it was built by millions of people who wrote, reported, photographed, filmed, coded, taught, reviewed, and shared what they knew.
We need an honest conversation about what happens next.
To the AI companies reading this, What is your long term plan to make sure original human creators can keep producing the knowledge your systems need, how will independent creators, not only large publishers, participate in the value AI creates from their work?
Please do not answer only with general promises about citations, traffic, or innovation, explain the system, explain the choices, explain how the person doing the work can continue doing it.
I am hopeful because the technology is powerful and because the problem still has time to be solved, I do not want a fight between travel creators and AI, I want a future where travelers get better information, AI becomes more useful, and the people who do the original work have a reason and a real ability to continue.
The next accurate travel answer begins with a human being somewhere doing the work, let us build a system that keeps that person in the future.
Yeison
Human Verified Travel
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