SAM

Trip planning has moved into a chat window. Over a billion people a week use ChatGPT, a billion a month use Gemini, AI answers now account for more than half of search activity, and 91 percent of younger travelers say they use AI to plan trips, arriving already decided and converting 42 percent better than everyone else. Ten blue links became one answer with about ten seats in it, and there is no page two. A study of 345 neutral traveler questions across five models measured how often a ski resort takes one of those seats without being asked for by name. In winter, 87 percent of the time. In summer, 51. Same question, same region, and the room fills up with national parks, gateway towns and attractions instead, with resorts' share of the places named dropping from 40 percent to 13. It holds across every model, and it's steepest in the Southeast, where resorts appear in 92 percent of winter answers and 36 percent of summer ones. Resorts win when the traveler already knows they want to ride a bike park, and vanish while that traveler is still deciding where to go at all. Nobody is running a bad summer. The models just can't find the evidence, and the way they look for it in summer is different from the way they look in winter.