Do travelers really use ChatGPT to plan adventure trips, or is this mostly a search engine trend?

Both are true simultaneously. Google's AI Overviews now appear on a large share of travel-related searches, meaning even traditional search users are increasingly reading an AI-generated summary before they see organic results. Separately, a growing number of travelers open ChatGPT or Perplexity directly as a first step, treating it as a planning assistant rather than a search engine.

Which stage of the AI-assisted planning process matters most for a small operator?

Stage two, activity and operator comparison, tends to matter most because it is where a small number of real businesses get named directly. It is also the most achievable stage to influence, since it depends heavily on your own website's clarity and structured data rather than on broad third-party coverage.

Should I write content specifically formatted as questions and answers?

It helps. AI tools parse question-and-answer content efficiently because it mirrors the structure of the query itself. A clear FAQ section addressing the logistics questions your customers actually ask by phone or email is one of the higher-leverage, lower-cost content investments an operator can make.

How is this different from just having good SEO?

Good SEO and good GEO overlap substantially — both reward clear, well-structured, accurate content. The difference is intent: SEO optimizes for a human scanning a results page and choosing where to click, while GEO optimizes for a model synthesizing a direct answer without a click in between. A page can rank well in traditional search and still be poorly suited to being cited in an AI answer if it's heavy on marketing language and light on verifiable specifics.

Can I influence what ChatGPT says about my business if it doesn't browse the live web?

Indirectly and over a longer timeline. Since ChatGPT's default behavior draws on training data, the most reliable way to influence it is a sustained, consistent presence across your website, review platforms, and third-party mentions, since that is the kind of information that eventually gets absorbed into future training updates. Live-retrieval tools like Perplexity and Google AI Overviews respond faster to direct changes.

How travelers now use ChatGPT and Perplexity to plan an adventure trip and pick an operator

The old path and the new one

The traditional adventure-trip research path looked like this: a traveler searches "things to do in Golden Colorado," lands on a listicle or a tourism board page, clicks through to two or three operator websites, compares pricing and photos, reads a handful of reviews, and books. Every step in that path was a chance for an operator's own website and reviews to do the persuading.

That path still exists, but a growing share of travelers now compress much of it into a conversation with an AI tool. Instead of ten searches and ten tabs, they ask a handful of direct questions and read synthesized answers. The practical effect for operators is that persuasion is happening earlier, inside an AI-generated response, before the traveler ever reaches your website. If your business isn't part of that response, you may never get the chance to make your case at all.

The three stages of AI-assisted trip planning

Our observation, consistent with the broader patterns in our AI answer gap research across the Front Range, is that travelers move through three distinct stages when an AI tool is involved. Each stage surfaces different information, and each rewards different content from an operator.

Stage one: broad inspiration

The traveler doesn't know exactly what they want yet. A typical prompt looks like "what are good outdoor activities near Boulder in September" or "I have three days in Colorado, what adventure activities should I plan for." At this stage, the AI tool is naming activity categories and general regions more than specific operators. This is where your business benefits from being mentioned in third-party content — regional tourism guides, local media, aggregator sites — because the AI model is drawing on a wide pool of general sources rather than searching for you by name.

Stage two: activity and operator comparison

The traveler has settled on an activity — say, whitewater rafting — and is now comparing operators or comparing adjacent activities against each other. Prompts shift to something like "best whitewater rafting company near Golden CO" or "should I do rafting or a via ferrata in Golden." This is the stage where specific, comparable operators get named, and it is the highest-leverage stage for most adventure businesses. The model is actively trying to differentiate a small number of real businesses from each other, and it does so using the clearest signals available: certifications, trip specifics, season and location match, and review sentiment.

Stage three: verification and logistics

The traveler has a shortlist, often just one or two names, and is now confirming details before booking: "is [operator] good for beginners," "does [operator] run trips in early June," "what should I bring for a half-day trip with [operator]." At this stage, the AI tool is often pulling directly from your website, your FAQ content, and recent reviews. Gaps here — missing beginner guidance, no clear seasonal calendar, thin FAQ content — can stall or lose a booking that was otherwise nearly closed.

What this means for content strategy

Most adventure and tourism operators only build content for stage two: a service page describing the trip and a price. That page matters, but it is not enough on its own, for two reasons.

First, if your business is absent from stage-one content — regional guides, local press, aggregator listings — you may never reach the comparison stage in a traveler's AI-assisted research, because the model's sense of "what's available in this area" was formed before it got specific. This is one reason a diversified presence across third-party sources still matters even in an AI-search environment; a single well-optimized website page cannot substitute for a broader footprint.

Second, if your website lacks stage-three content — FAQ-style detail on logistics, beginner suitability, what to bring, cancellation policy — an AI tool answering a late-stage verification question may either give an incomplete answer or default to a competitor whose site does address these details. This is a solvable, low-cost gap: it is largely a matter of writing the specific answers your front desk already gives over the phone every day and putting them on the page in a format a model can parse cleanly.

How ChatGPT and Perplexity differ in practice

The two tools travelers use most for this kind of planning behave differently, and operators benefit from understanding the difference rather than treating "AI search" as one undifferentiated thing.

ChatGPT's baseline behavior draws heavily on training data — a snapshot of the web as of some earlier point, refreshed periodically. When ChatGPT is not using live browsing, a new or recently updated page may not yet be reflected in its answers. Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity, by contrast, blend live retrieval into most answers, which means changes to your website, your Google Business Profile, or your review profile can influence what these tools say much sooner — often within weeks rather than a training cycle.

The practical implication is that operators should not expect a single content update to shift every AI tool's answers simultaneously. Live-retrieval tools respond faster to structural improvements like schema markup, updated seasonal information, and fresh reviews. Training-data-dependent behavior in tools like ChatGPT's default mode shifts more slowly and benefits more from a sustained, consistent presence across many sources over time, since that is what eventually gets absorbed into a future training snapshot.

What to check for your own business

A useful exercise is to run all three stages of questions yourself, exactly as a prospective customer would type them, in both ChatGPT and Perplexity. Ask a broad inspiration question about your region and activity category. Ask a direct comparison question naming your activity and city. Ask a verification question about a logistics detail a real customer would ask. Note whether you appear at each stage, how accurately you're described, and which competitors appear instead of you.

This is exactly the check our free AI Visibility Audit automates, across the specific queries that matter for your business and your season.