BrightEdge Study Finds AI Travel Search Favors Big Brands

BrightEdge, a US travel marketing research firm, released a "Holiday Travel in AI Search" study measuring brand mentions in Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT across airlines, cruises, hotels, and booking platforms, Search Engine Journal reported on October 31. Since AI answers aren't ranked the way traditional search results are, the study reported results as a "mention share": how often each brand appeared across the tracked AI answers.

In airlines, American Airlines led in both AI Overviews (26.6%) and ChatGPT (25.3%), with a wider gap over second-place United Airlines in ChatGPT (9.1 points) than in AI Overviews (6.1 points). In cruises, Royal Caribbean led both platforms too, at 24.8% in AI Overviews and 28.8% in ChatGPT. In hotels, Hilton led AI Overviews at 28.3%, while Marriott led ChatGPT at 29.4%. Among booking platforms, Expedia was mentioned 2.2 times more often than Kayak in AI Overviews and 1.4 times more often in ChatGPT.

Booking platforms had an outsized presence in price- and deal-related queries. Among AI Overview answers containing words like "cheap," "deal," or "last-minute," booking platforms appeared 78% of the time, compared with just 17% for other queries. Booking platforms were mentioned directly in 38% of queries with clear booking intent, but in only 12% of inspiration-style queries about where to travel.

Inspiration-style queries, by contrast, more often surfaced non-travel sites like YouTube, Reddit, and AAA, BrightEdge said, though it didn't analyze why big brands are relatively less visible for these queries. Author Roger Montti read this as meaning user-experience and genuine-review content performs better for inspiration-style queries, suggesting a knowledgeable travel blogger could out-produce Reddit in this space.

For queries with clear booking intent, like price comparisons or deals, large booking platforms, airlines, and hotel chains already dominate AI answers, leaving little room for smaller travel agencies or blogs. For inspiration-style queries like "where should I travel," though, content built around personal experience and detailed reviews surfaces more often, so a detailed account of an actual trip can outperform a generic destination list. Rather than competing on price comparisons, focusing on experience-driven content that goes deep on a specific region or theme is the more realistic strategy.

Source: Search Engine Journal, October 31, 2026. Checked November 2, 2026. Read the original