AI travel discovery is changing how travellers discover, compare and plan trips. As AI tools become a larger part of the travel planning journey, travel and destination brands need a GEO strategy to ensure they appear in the recommendations influencing visitor decisions.
If a destination does not appear in those AI-generated recommendations, it risks missing potential visitors before they even begin researching their options.
Ask an AI assistant where to go for a long weekend by train, with independent restaurants and enough to do if it rains. It may return a short list of places, explain the fit and offer to build an itinerary. A destination missing from that first answer may never enter the traveller’s plans.
That is the challenge behind this year’s World Tourism Day 2026 theme: “Digital Agenda and Artificial Intelligence to redesign tourism”. The event description warns that the opportunity to shape how destinations are discovered is open now. It also raises a concern that, as AI answers become a commercial space, larger brands could gain an advantage through paid visibility.
For travel and destination brands, that raises a practical question: if AI travel discovery increasingly influences decisions, how can destinations shape the information those systems use to make recommendations?
How is AI travel discovery changing the way travellers explore destinations?
AI travel discovery is changing the way travellers discover destinations by enabling people to ask highly specific travel questions and receive personalised recommendations in return.
Travellers still find inspiration through friends, publishers, social media and search engines. They can also put several needs into one question and ask AI to narrow the options for them.
A family might want a coastal break without a car. Another traveller might ask for a quieter alternative to a familiar city, with accessible attractions and good food. These questions give destinations new ways to be discovered. They also make it easier to be overlooked if the information that answers them is missing or hard to trust.
UN Tourism’s report on AI adoption describes its influence across the travel journey, from planning and booking to the experience itself. For destination brands, the immediate issue is how a place is represented at the planning stage, when a traveller is deciding where to go.
How do AI tools decide which destinations to recommend?
There is no universal formula behind AI travel discovery. The tools differ, and the same destination may appear for one question but not another. In Google’s AI search features, a response can draw on several related searches and use web pages to support its answer. Google says established search practices and genuinely useful content remain important.
That makes a destination’s wider digital presence worth examining. Its own website may explain what to see, but does it say who an experience suits, when to visit and how to get there? Are opening times and access details current? Do relevant publishers, local businesses and other independent sources help people understand what makes the place distinctive?
Consider a town known chiefly for its summer beach. It may also have a strong food scene, a walkable centre and reasons to visit in October. If those experiences are poorly documented, the town may be absent when someone asks for an autumn break without a car. Better information gives it a stronger case for consideration. It does not guarantee a recommendation.
Why should travel brands care about AI discovery?
Travel and destination brands depend on a network of hotels, attractions, restaurants, transport providers and local voices. No single organisation controls everything said about a place. AI can draw that scattered information into one answer, including details that are dated, inconsistent or incomplete.
The risk is more than a missed mention. An inaccurate answer about accessibility, travel connections or what is open can damage a traveller’s experience. UN Tourism’s work on AI adoption explicitly raises the validity of AI-supplied information, alongside wider questions of transparency and fairness.
Travel and destination brands therefore have two connected jobs: make their place easier to discover for the right trips, and help ensure that what travellers find is dependable.
What does a GEO strategy look like for travel and destination brands?
As AI travel discovery continues to evolve, GEO helps brands understand how they appear within AI-generated recommendations and what influences those results.
Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, begins with the questions travellers actually ask. Brands should test the types of trips it wants to be considered for and see which places AI tools suggest. Where does its own destination appear? How is it described? Which sources inform the answer, and what has been missed?
The findings should guide work across the destination’s website and its wider reputation. That may mean clearer information about travel and accessibility, stronger content on experiences outside peak season, or more accurate details across partner sites. It may mean earning relevant coverage that gives independent substance to a claim about the destination. The priority is to address real gaps, not to produce pages simply because an AI tool might read them.
Progress can be measured by repeating a consistent set of traveller questions and reviewing both inclusion and accuracy. Brands can then assess those findings alongside visits, enquiries and other available measures of interest. AI visibility alone is not the outcome; helping the right people choose the destination is.
At PHA, we connect this work via integrated digital strategies consisting of search, content, digital PR, earned media and measurement. Our GEO approach helps destination brands understand how they currently appear in AI discovery, strengthen the information and authority behind that presence, and track the results.
World Tourism Day 2026 highlights a challenge the industry can no longer ignore. For travel and destination brands, the useful next step is to ask an AI assistant about the trips their place is best suited to, then look closely at the answers.
More from us
As AI travel discovery shifts from search engines to AI assistants, visibility is becoming a competitive advantage. PHA is a leading travel PR and communications agency for brands who have little visibility over how they’re being recommended, described or whether they’re appearing at all.
Our GEO service helps travel and destination brands understand where they appear in AI-generated recommendations, improve the information shaping those recommendations and build a stronger presence across the channels AI relies on.
Continue reading to learn more about PHA and GEO:
- What is Generative Engine Optimisation and why does it matter?
- Consumer travel motivations matter more than destinations in 2026
- Integrate GEO into your digital strategy for visibility in AI-led search
Talk to our team of digital experts for a GEO audit of your brand, and together we can create a roadmap to improve your visibility across AI-powered search and recommendation platforms.
Get in touch at hello@thephagroup.com to find out more.