Hi Reader,

I keep having some version of this conversation with travel brand founders, so I'm putting it in writing here too.

You already know travelers are asking AIs where to go. You may have also read that this kind of search barely sends any traffic to travel sites directly, and quietly moved it down the priority list.

The traffic is there. It just doesn't look like it’s coming from ChatGPT, Claude, and co.

Most travelers who get your name from an AI answer don't click through right then. Either the web address wasn’t in that answer, or the travelers close the tab and think it over.

A few days later, they type your brand straight into Google, or search for you on a booking platform. Because you were one of only a few brands recommended. Your analytics logs that as a branded search or a direct visit. Nothing in that record says an AI conversation started it.

So the exact traffic you were told doesn't exist gets counted as something else. The number is real. It's just measuring the wrong moment.

SEO still matters for the searches that happen the old way. Being the brand an AI tool actually recommends, when a traveler asks it where to go, is now just as necessary.

Being named in that answer is different from ranking on a search results page. A search engine hands the traveler ten ‘self-promoted’ options and lets them sort it out.

An AI tool picks a selected number of brands to recommend, based on what they actually asked for. When you're named, the traveler arrives already convinced you're a good match. They skip the part where they'd normally compare you against nine other tabs.

I wrote about this, with the research behind it for One Planet Journey, so read the full article HERE.

In service of nature,
Jessica

P.S. AI search optimization is what I work through with travel brands directly: building visibility for both kinds of search together. Reply to this email if you want to start getting more aligned travelers come to you with trust already built in.