When a traveler asks AI for the best hotel, airline, or itinerary, are you the recommendation?.
Hotels, airlines, online travel agencies, destinations. Travel was the first category where AI changed how people plan trips. mapou tracks three travel segments on the monthly panel (hotels, airlines, OTAs) and helps travel brands earn citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews where the booking journey now begins. Cruise lines and tour operators are no longer in the monthly tracking panel; we still consult on those and refresh the data on request.
Travel is 3 segments on the MVI leaderboard.
We test brands at the segment level because hotels and airlines compete on different prompts; retailers and manufacturers do too. Pick a segment to see the full leaderboard with per-engine breakdowns, MVI scores, and Wilson 95% confidence intervals.
Hotels.
Default choice: Marriott · MVI 55 · 20 brands tested
Read segment reportAirlines.
Default choice: Delta · MVI 65 · 20 brands tested
Read segment reportOTAs & Travel Booking.
Default choice: Booking.com · MVI 56 · 20 brands tested
Read segment reportEach report runs 20 buyer-intent prompts × 5 AI engines = 100 atomic verdicts per brand. MVI is a 0-100 proprietary score weighted across four buyer-intent dimensions. How it works · Run your own at mapou.ai/check.
How travelers actually use AI to plan trips.
Travel planning has been one of the fastest-shifting categories in AI search. ChatGPT and Perplexity are now the first stop for itinerary research, hotel comparison, and destination discovery. The brand cited gets the consideration set.
- “What are the best hotels and resorts to consider for both business and leisure travel in 2026?”
- “Best affordable hotels and resorts under $150 a night for both business and leisure travel?”
- “Compare the top hotel and resort brands for 2026. Which is best for business travelers versus leisure travelers?”
- “What should I look for when buying hotels and resorts for both business and leisure travel?”
- “What are the top brands in hotels and resorts in 2026?”
Live prompts · 20 tr-hotels brands tested
Where mapou helps travel brands.
Travel is a multi-touch, multi-platform purchase journey with thin margins and brutal competitive density. AI search is now sitting on top of that funnel. mapou's experience in measurement-heavy ad businesses translates well.
§01
Itinerary and destination entity authority.
AI assistants love destinations and itineraries; they pull from authoritative content sources. We build the entity architecture and content strategy that gets your hotels, routes, packages, and experiences cited as the answer.
§02
Loyalty and program-level citations.
Travel buyers ask AI about loyalty programs, partnerships, redemption value, status benefits. We map where your program shows up and where it should, then close the gap.
§03
Attribution across a long, multi-touch funnel.
Travel funnels are notoriously hard to measure. We bring multi-touch attribution muscle from ad-tech and connect AI-sourced inspiration to downstream bookings, not just clicks.
Common questions.
Does this work for OTAs (online travel agencies) as well as hotels and airlines?
Yes. OTAs face a particularly interesting dynamic: AI may cite the OTA, the brand, or both. We help OTAs strengthen their own brand-citation rate, not just become a feed for someone else's recommendation.
What about destination marketing organizations (DMOs)?
Same playbook with a different goal. DMOs benefit enormously from AI search because itinerary planning is the most common AI use case in travel. We help destinations build entity authority that AI cites by name.
How is this different from traditional travel SEO?
Traditional travel SEO targets generic queries on Google ('hotels in Lisbon'). GEO targets being cited inside AI itinerary answers and recommendation lists. Different signals, different content shape, often complementary.
See exactly where you stand in AI search.
Run the free visibility check for your brand. Five buyer-intent prompts, both ChatGPT and Perplexity, with verdicts and a personalized recommendation. Sixty seconds.
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