As AI reshapes the travel marketing landscape, brands must rethink their approach to content strategy. A new report from Curacity reveals how marketers can shift from passive awareness-building to active, measurable demand creation through targeted storytelling and strategic distribution.
Read on for the interview we conducted with Pavia Rosati and Jeralyn Gerba, co-founders of Fathom. You can access all insights from the report by visiting Skift.
Q: What motivated Fathom to start a Substack newsletter?
Ironically, while Substack and, generally speaking, the newsletter format, are getting attention as the shiny new thing in media, we have always relied on a steady diet of email content. From the beginning, we used newsletters as a marketing vehicle for Fathom, and we have experimented with all sorts of content delivery styles over the years.
We wanted to get into the habit of writing more personally, less preciously, and more often, so we started Way to Go on Substack. Substack invites an intimate relationship between reader and writer that is lacking elsewhere on the internet, and that was (and is) very appealing to us.
Q: What tangible results have you seen from the email channel?
We have gained thousands of new followers and subscribers from the Substack universe thanks to other Substacks recommending us and engaged subscribers restacking our posts.
Q: Why do you think so many people are opting into newsletters?
We have never been afraid of long-format narrative storytelling and service journalism, and we would argue that our readers are generally not afraid of reading. Our newsletter continues to be a great resource for people who take pleasure in researching their trips, or take pleasure in knowing where to go to find a few solid travel tips to keep in their back pocket.
Q: How do newsletters help you go deeper with content?
“On Substack, we’re being a bit more experimental with our topics, our formats, and our voice. Substack posts that acknowledge current events seem to resonate with readers. That’s different from our approach to Fathom editorial — on the website, we want everything to be as evergreen as possible. So far, the response has been steadily and positively trending upward.”
Q: Has AI influenced the way you create and distribute content?
It hasn’t. We do the same kind of honest storytelling and reporting that we always do. We can report a great deal based on information we can get independently, but nothing will ever compare to being able to write about a hotel we have experienced ourselves.
We offer a voice and a style and often early access that AI can’t offer yet. Hopefully it won’t. And since we’ve always been boutique in our approach, we haven’t ever noticed huge swings in our traffic based on algorithmic decisions made at Google HQ. Thankfully, people still appreciate a human touch.
