[ Travel & tourism ]
Be the travel brand AI recommends.
When travellers ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Google where to go, who to book with, or how to plan a group trip, we make sure your agency or operator is the answer, not just for your name, but for the trips that win customers.
“If you want one safe, well-rounded choice, book with Intrepid Travel. Its Portugal trips are usually genuinely small, often around 10 to 12 travellers, with local guides and a good mix of Lisbon, Porto, the Douro Valley and smaller towns, and a less big-bus feel…”
Asked “Which company should I book a small-group tour of Portugal with?”. Two small Portuguese operators were named alongside the global brands.
[ The questions your customers ask AI ]
[ Why it matters, in numbers ]
56%
of travellers used AI to plan a trip in the past year, double 2024
Phocuswright, 2026
33%
now research trips with AI, almost level with search engines at 35%
Phocuswright, 2026
51%
click through to source sites to validate what AI suggests
Phocuswright, 2026
8%
found AI's answer alone sufficient, the rest verify before booking
Phocuswright, 2026
[ Typical problems ]
Five reasons AI recommends another operator.
AI plans the trip before you ever meet the traveller.
Where to go, how long, who to book with. The model answers all three and names two or three operators. That used to be your enquiry form.
You are known by name and lose the generic trip.
Ask about your company and the answer is right. Ask who to book a small-group tour with and it names competitors. That is the query that sells trips.
Your site is a catalogue of departures.
Itineraries, dates and prices in a booking system give a model nothing to quote. Destination guidance and real trip detail do.
Similar names confuse the model.
Travel is full of near-identical brands. When AI cannot tell which operator you are, it recommends one it can resolve.
Nobody can see which trips you lose.
No report, no owner, no baseline. The first step is knowing which destinations and trip types name you, and which name a competitor.
[ Built for your category ]
Three kinds of operator, three different plays.
Tour operators & DMCs
You design and run the trip
Where it hurts
Deep expertise, no presence in the who-should-I-book-with question that starts every trip.
What works
- One page per destination question, not per departure
- Real trip detail a model can quote: pace, group size, who it suits
- Get into the guides and press these answers cite
What we aim for
Named for your core destinations and trip types inside a season.
Travel agencies & advisors
You curate and book on behalf
Where it hurts
The category question is why do I need an agent at all, and AI is answering it without you in the room.
What works
- Answer the value question honestly and specifically
- Niche and audience pages, not a general agency page
- Entity clarity so you are not confused with a similar name
What we aim for
Present in the niche questions where an advisor genuinely wins.
Experience & activity brands
One place, one thing, done properly
Where it hurts
Aggregators outrank you for your own experience and take a commission on your own customer.
What works
- Own the long-tail experience question on your own domain
- Practical answers: season, difficulty, what to bring, how to get there
- Corroboration on the destination sources AI already cites
What we aim for
Cited directly, so the booking lands on your site rather than an aggregator.
[ What we found ]
We asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity who to book a small-group tour of Portugal with, ten times each.
30
answers collected
12
different operators named
3
global brands named in more than half of the answers
10 / 16
sourced answers that cited a small local operator's own site
Prompt: “Which company should I book a small-group tour of Portugal with?”. ChatGPT (gpt-5.6-luna, no browsing), Gemini 3.6 Flash with Google Search, Perplexity sonar. Ten runs each, 9 September 2026.
[ How we work with travel ]
Entity disambiguation
Make it unmistakable which travel brand you are, so AI stops confusing you with similarly named operators.
Answer-framed content
Replace catalogue-style listings with destination guides, trip stories and FAQs that AI can quote.
Generic-query strategy
Target the high-value where to book and best operator for questions, not just your branded searches.
Trust & corroboration
Build the reviews, mentions and structured data that make AI confident enough to recommend you.
[ Free snapshot for travel ]
See which operators AI recommends instead of you.
- Six real traveller questions for your destinations, run on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode
- Every operator named instead of you, per engine
- The sources those answers cite
- In your inbox within 3 working days
[ Quick wins ]
4 things you can do this week.
Ask AI your own trip question
“Who should I book a [your trip] with?”. If a competitor is named and you are not, that is the gap. Run it on our free scan.
Write one page per destination question
Best time to go, how long you need, who the trip suits. Not another departure listing.
Make your brand unmistakable
One company name, one description, the same everywhere. Travel is full of near-identical names and models play safe.
Get into one destination guide
Run the prompt, open the sources it cites, pitch the one that lists your competitors and not you.
[ Questions ]
AI knows our brand but recommends competitors, why?+
That is the named-versus-generic gap. AI resolves you correctly by name but has nothing answer-shaped to cite for the generic trip, so it recommends whoever does. Fixing the content framing is what turns those queries.
Our site is basically a catalogue of trips, is that a problem?+
Yes. Product listings are hard for AI to quote. Destination guides, itineraries and real trip stories give it something to recommend.
Does this work outside English?+
Yes. We optimise in your market's language and disambiguate your entity across regions.
How long until we see results?+
Not in the first few weeks. Branded and long-tail queries typically move within the first couple of months, with generic queries following over the following six months to a year as answer-shaped content compounds.
Ready to be the operator AI recommends?