Published on: July 16, 2026

Abhishek Mago is a seasoned, insightful, and agile marketing leader who has built brands across the diverse consumer landscapes of India and the Middle East. He brings a deeply human perspective to the complex world of digital scale and performance marketing.

He views technology like AI not as a threat to the creative process, but as an essential tool for efficiency. For him, the goal is to use tech to handle the “messy” data so he can focus on the human magic that truly builds a brand. 

In this conversation, he explores how travel marketing is shifting from a game of reach to a game of relevance.

You have built marketing across travel brands in India and the Middle East — two very different consumer markets. What did that contrast teach you?

 The core human motivations to travel are actually quite universal; it doesn’t really matter which market you are looking at. However, the triggers, the decision-making processes, and the trust factors are where things get truly interesting. 

 In India, travel decisions are highly value-conscious and research-intensive. Consumers compare extensively, seek reassurance through reviews and social proof, and respond strongly to offers and pricing. Growth is often driven by scale, performance marketing efficiency, and understanding regional nuances.

On the other hand, the Middle East, particularly the UAE, is a far more diverse and multicultural market where convenience, premium experiences, personalization, and service quality often outweigh price alone. Marketing success here requires balancing multiple nationalities, languages, and cultural expectations while delivering a seamless customer experience.

The biggest lesson I have learned across India, the USA, and Africa is that successful brands do not simply export campaigns across markets. They build a consistent brand promise while localizing the messaging, channels, partnerships, and customer journeys. This has reinforced my belief that great marketing starts with deep consumer understanding; it is about finding that specific spark that makes a brand relevant to someone’s life. 

The Delhi HC’s May 2026 ruling found Google liable for allowing trademarked keywords in its ad auction. For a travel brand running on search, how significant is this?

This ruling is potentially very significant; branded search is often the highest-intent and highest-converting traffic in the entire marketing funnel. If competitors can no longer bid on your registered trademarked keywords, you are finally protecting demand that you have spent years and millions of marketing dollars creating.

 From my experience running travel businesses across India, the US, and the Middle East, OTAs and airlines have traditionally had to defend their own brand terms aggressively because a customer searching for your brand is often already close to booking. 

“This judgment could reduce brand traffic leakage, improve branded search efficiency, lower defensive bidding costs, and strengthen conversion rates for established brands.”

That said, the broader impact will depend on how Google ultimately implements the ruling and whether it withstands further legal scrutiny. Strategically, strong brands stand to benefit the most because they will retain more of the demand they have already generated.

Travel is one of the most aggressive categories for competitor keyword bidding. Does the Hindware ruling change your search strategy going forward?

The ruling does not fundamentally change my search strategy; rather, it influences how I allocate resources and measure where the real opportunities lie.  My belief has always been that sustainable growth comes from owning consumer preference, not simply winning auctions. Search remains a critical demand-capture channel, but brand building remains the ultimate acquisition strategy.

In fact, this ruling actually stands to benefit us because, if competitor bidding on trademarked terms becomes more restricted, I can stop worrying about high defensive spending on branded keywords. I would likely redirect a portion of that investment toward category growth, upper-funnel demand creation, content, and video.  The objective would be to strengthen the brand’s share of consumer consideration before the search even begins.

 At the same time, I would continue to focus heavily on generic and destination-intent keywords, where competitive differentiation still matters most. 

“The strongest travel brands will always be those who create demand, not merely intercept it.”

This ruling may improve efficiency, but long-term growth will still be driven by brand strength, customer experience, and consumer trust.

68% of Indian travelers say they are likely to use AI for their next trip. How is that shift showing up practically in how you market?

In this view, consider: the opportunity is not just better targeting but also broader distribution and channel integration.

The rise of AI is fundamentally changing how travelers discover, evaluate, and book travel. What we’re seeing is a shift from traditional keyword-based searches to conversational and intent-driven discovery, where travelers increasingly expect personalized recommendations rather than a list of options.

From a marketing perspective, especially with the way Google has updated the consumer funnel, we have to think far beyond individual channels and focus on integrated customer journeys.  AI is enabling us to create more personalised content, optimise targeting, predict intent, and engage consumers at different stages of the decision-making process. It is equally reshaping the distribution. Travel brands can no longer rely solely on search engines or a handful of acquisition channels.  They must expand their presence across AI-driven discovery platforms, social commerce, content ecosystems, partnerships, voice interfaces, and emerging travel assistants.

 The brands that succeed will be those that ensure their content, inventory, and value proposition are discoverable wherever consumers choose to seek inspiration, advice, or transact. 

“AI is making marketing less about managing channels and more about orchestrating connected experiences across an increasingly fragmented ecosystem.”

Attribution in travel spans metasearch, OTAs, social and direct. Where does measurement still genuinely fall short?

Travel is rarely a linear journey. A customer may discover a destination through a social video, compare options on a metasearch site, read reviews, revisit it through search, and finally convert through a direct visit days or weeks later.

Despite all the advances in analytics, attribution still struggles to fully capture the influence of brand, trust, and cross-channel behavior. 

“Most attribution models are better at measuring transactions than understanding influence.”

In my experience, the biggest gap remains in connecting upper-funnel brand activity to downstream commercial outcomes. We can measure clicks, conversions, and ROAS with increasing precision, but understanding how channels work together to create demand is still far from perfect. Attribution also becomes more challenging across devices, walled gardens, and emerging AI-driven discovery platforms.

The future isn’t about choosing between brand and performance measurement; it is about building unified frameworks that combine attribution, incrementality testing, media mix modelling, and customer lifetime value. The goal should be understanding contribution, not simply assigning credit.

Ecommerce in travel is no longer just about booking — it is loyalty, upsell, ancillaries. Where is the real growth battle being fought today?

The real growth battle is no longer being fought at the point of booking; it’s being fought around customer ownership, frequency, and share of wallet. 

For years, travel businesses competed on inventory, pricing, and acquisition efficiency, making these factors increasingly commoditised. The brands creating disproportionate value today are the ones building ecosystems that extend far beyond the transaction. The objective is not simply to acquire a booking but to maximize customer lifetime value through loyalty, personalization, ancillaries, financial products, memberships, and post-booking engagement.

What makes this commercially interesting is that acquisition costs continue to rise while attention becomes more fragmented. As a result, the economics increasingly favor businesses that can focus on LTV and deepen customer relationships rather than repeatedly “buying them back” through expensive paid channels. 

I also believe the next phase of growth will come from tighter integration between distribution, customer data, and ancillary monetization. The winners, even today, are those that use every customer interaction—not just bookings—to create relevance, drive repeat behaviour, and unlock incremental revenue streams. 

“Travel is evolving from a transaction business into a relationship business, and that’s where the most valuable growth opportunities now exist.”