Why ChatGPT, Claude and Google Give Different Answers About Your Travel Brand

That isn't because one of them is wrong. It's because each platform reads from a different pile of sources, and gives those sources different amounts of weight. If you're a hotel, tourism board or tour operator, that matters. There isn't one "AI" to be visible in. There are several, each with its own reading habits.

When you ask an AI tool a question, it gets its answer from two places.

1. What it already knows. 

Before an AI tool is released, it “reads” a huge amount of writing, such as websites, books and articles. It doesn’t keep copies of them, but it remembers a lot of what it read, a bit like a person who has spent years in a giant library. The catch is that its reading stops on a certain date, so it hasn’t seen anything written after that.

2. A quick look online. 

For anything newer, or anything it isn’t sure about, it searches the internet right then, the way you might look something up on your phone.

That quick look is where the tools differ, because each one uses a different search engine:

• Gemini (Google’s AI) uses Google.
• ChatGPT mostly uses Bing (Microsoft’s search engine).
• Claude uses one called Brave.

It’s a bit like asking three friends for a restaurant recommendation when each one checks a different guidebook. They won’t all suggest the same places.

So if your brand only shows up well on Google, the other AI tools might never find it. And even when two tools find the very same article, they may not trust it equally. One might treat it as a reliable source while another passes it over.

Each AI tool looks in a different place, so a brand that shows up in one may not show up in another.

Muck Rack’s What is AI Reading? study looked at more than 25 million links that ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini gave as the sources for their answers. In other words, it checked where the AI tools got their information from.

Here’s what it found:

• 84% came from earned coverage: stories and mentions a business didn’t pay for, like a journalist choosing to write about it.
• 0.3% came from paid content, such as adverts or sponsored articles.
• 27% came from news journalism alone.

In plain English: you can’t buy your way into AI answers. You have to earn your place, which is what good PR has always done.

The catch is that each AI tool favours different kinds of coverage, so what works well for one may not work as well for another.

ChatGPT: favours big newspapers and magazines 

ChatGPT is the AI tool most of your audience is likely to be using.

What it likes to point to:

• Wikipedia is the website it uses most. Axios, YouTube and Forbes are also near the top.
• It leans towards big, well-known publications.
• It names its sources in 96% of its answers, usually around five each time.
• It likes recent news: 56% of the news articles it points to were published in the last year.

It also has agreements with major publishers. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, pays some big names for permission to use their articles. These include News Corp (which owns The Times), the Financial Times and the Guardian. In simple terms, ChatGPT can read their articles freely and draw on them in its answers. That doesn’t guarantee you a mention, but coverage in these titles is easy for ChatGPT to find.

What this means for travel. One study of travel questions found that ChatGPT pointed to Forbes nearly 11 times more often than Google’s AI search does. For Condé Nast Traveler, it was around eight and a half times more often.

In practice: a boutique hotel in Cornwall

Imagine the hotel wants to appear when someone asks ChatGPT for the best boutique hotels in Cornwall. Here’s what to focus on:

• Aim for the round-ups and “best of” lists ChatGPT favours, such as the Sunday Times’ best places to stay or Telegraph Travel round-ups.
• If the hotel has a Wikipedia page, check it’s accurate. Report any mistakes through Wikipedia’s proper channels rather than editing the page yourself.
• Plan a steady flow of news through the year rather than one big splash. ChatGPT favours recent coverage, and older stories fade from view quickly.

Claude: favours specialist and official sources

Claude is pickier. It includes sources in only 55% of its answers, making it the most selective of the big three. When it does cite, it tends to go niche: the outlets in Claude's top 100 have around half the average monthly readership of ChatGPT's top 100. It leans towards academic journals, industry publications, technical documentation and government sources.

It's also less fixated on this week's news. Only 36% of its journalism citations come from the past year, so a good piece from last spring can still be working hard for you.

In practice: a small-group walking holiday company

Imagine the company wants Claude to recommend it. Rather than chasing a national newspaper, they should focus on:

• Pitching to specialist titles. Offer an in-depth feature to an outdoor magazine, and a story to publications read by the travel industry, such as TTG or Travel Weekly.
• Publishing something properly useful on its own website. A full guide to the route, how tough it is, the best months to go and what to pack.
• Getting listed in the trusted directories for its niche. For example, AITO (the Association of Independent Tour Operators).

In practice: a tourism board

For a tourism board, the opportunity with Claude is data.

• Publish your visitor research and economic impact figures on a clear, well-organised page on your website. This is exactly the kind of official source Claude likes to point to, and journalists will pick it up too.

Google’s AI (Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode): favours video and Reddit 

Gemini is Google’s AI tool, and it has its own favourites.

What it likes to point to:

• Reddit is the website it uses most, followed by YouTube.
• Video matters far more here than on other AI tools. In the same travel study, YouTube was pointed to about 4.6 times more often by Google’s AI search than by ChatGPT.
• Ranking well on Google still helps Gemini find you, but on its own it’s no longer enough Ranking on page one of Google is no longer a guarantee. Ahrefs found that only 38% of the websites Google’s AI summaries point to come from the top ten regular search results. Less than a year earlier, it was 76%.

In practice: a family-friendly holiday park

Imagine the park wants to show up when a parent asks Gemini for the best family holiday parks. Here’s what to focus on:

• Make short, honest YouTube videos that answer parents’ real questions. For example, a tour of a lodge, what the pool looks like, or how long the walk to the beach takes.
• Give each video a clear, descriptive title, such as “Two-bedroom family lodge with hot tub: full tour”.
• Keep your Google Business Profile up to date, including photos, opening times and FAQs. This is Google’s own information about you, so Gemini trusts it.

Perplexity: favours Reddit and recent conversations

Perplexity is another AI tool, and it’s a big fan of Reddit.

What it likes to point to:

• Reddit (a website where people swap advice and opinions in themed discussion groups) is the source it uses most. Depending on which study you read, it makes up anywhere from a quarter to almost half of the sources Perplexity points to.
• It favours recent content.
• It has surprisingly little in common with ChatGPT. Only 11% of the websites each one points to are the same.

In practice: a city-based DMC

Imagine a business wants to show up when someone asks Perplexity about its destination. Here’s what to focus on:

• Find the Reddit groups where people talk about your destination, such as r/travel or a group for your city or country, and see what’s being said about you.
• If you join in, do it openly as the business. Be genuinely helpful rather than salesy.
• Don’t try to sneak in a sales pitch. Reddit users can spot one a mile off.

Your website is the one source you fully control. You decide exactly what it says, and AI tools read it alongside everything else that’s said about you. A vague website gives them very little to work with.

Here’s the full picture. One study asked AI tools 1,500 questions about travel destinations and looked at where the answers came from:

• Hotels’ own websites made up 6% of the sources, and most of that went to big chains. That tells us detailed, well-built websites do get picked up.
• Booking and review sites made up around 44%, such as Expedia, Tripadvisor, Hotels.com and Booking.com.
• In a separate study, Reddit appeared in more than 70% of travel answers that named a source.

AI tools pull from many places, and your website is the only one of them you write yourself.

A strong website also feeds the AI tools directly:

• Gemini uses Google’s search results. A website that appears high up on Google feeds it.
• Claude likes in-depth guides and official information straight from the business. That’s exactly what a good website provides.

So there are two jobs, and the first is the foundation:

1. Make your website the clearest, most complete answer to the questions guests ask.
2. Make sure what’s said about you elsewhere matches it.

The one your audience actually uses.

First, the numbers. ChatGPT is still the giant, with more than half (53.9%) of all web visits to the major AI chatbots in May 2026. Gemini is a distant second at 27.9%, Claude sits at 9.2% and Perplexity trails at just 1.3%.

But the leaderboard is shifting. Claude is growing faster than any of the others, and it's become a favourite in professional and business settings, which matters if you sell to the travel trade or corporate clients.

And travellers are getting on board fast. Nearly a quarter used AI to help plan a trip in late 2025, three times as many as in 2022.

Here's how that might play out:

• A couple planning an anniversary weekend is most likely asking ChatGPT, or reading Google's AI Overview at the top of their search. For a leisure hotel, those two come first.
• A corporate events planner looking for a venue for a 40-person leadership offsite may well be using Claude or Copilot at work. For a hotel with meeting space, specialist events and trade press matter more.
• A tourism board speaking to both holidaymakers and the travel trade needs to cover both: consumer media and Google for visitors, trade press and published data for the industry.

The quickest way to find out? Ask. Add "How did you research your trip?" to your booking form or post-stay survey, with AI tools as an option. And check your website analytics for visits coming from chatgpt.com, claude.ai, gemini.google.com and perplexity.ai.

You don't need special software to get started. Pick five questions your guests genuinely ask and put each one to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. For example:

• Hotels: "Where should I stay for a spa weekend near Bath?" or "Is [your hotel] good for families?"
• Tourism boards: "What's the best time of year to visit [your region]?" or "Is [your destination] worth visiting in winter?"
• Tour operators: "What's the best small-group walking holiday in Portugal?" or "Is [your company] a reputable operator?"

For each answer, note four things. Were you mentioned? Which competitors were? Which sources were cited? And was anything about you wrong or out of date?

Imagine an independent hotel in the Peak District runs the check. ChatGPT names it, citing a newspaper round-up from last year. Claude doesn't mention it at all, citing a specialist hotel review site and the regional tourism board's website instead. Gemini names a competitor with a popular YouTube room tour and plenty of Reddit mentions.

That tells the hotel exactly what to do next. Keep national press ticking over for ChatGPT. Get onto the specialist review site and the tourism board's accommodation pages for Claude. Make a couple of short videos for Google. Three platforms, three different jobs.

Then run the check again every quarter. These patterns shift as the platforms update, so treat it as a regular health check rather than a one-off.

A one-hour check gives you a snapshot. But AI answers change with how a question is worded, and can differ each time you ask, so five questions only tell you so much. Our AI visibility audit tests the questions that matter most to your bookings across all four platforms, and shows which sources each one relies on and where to focus first.