BrightEdge Data: Big Brands Dominate AI Travel Search, But Gaps Remain

American Airlines, Royal Caribbean and Expedia lead their travel categories on both Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT, according to new research from BrightEdge. The study, based on BrightEdge's tracked panel of AI answers, shows the same major brands winning across engines — but with a different leader per travel niche, and one notable opening for smaller publishers.

BrightEdge reports that hotels split by engine: Hilton leads Google AI Overviews at 28.3%, while Marriott leads ChatGPT at 29.4%. Expedia's visibility on Google AI Overviews is 2.2x that of Kayak, at 31.3% versus 14.4%. On ChatGPT, the gap narrows to 1.4x.

The figures measure share of voice rather than traditional rankings, because AI search does not link out to sites in the way classic search results do. BrightEdge counts appearances among tracked AI answers, since AI platforms do not feature conventional ranking positions.

Which brands lead each travel category?

BrightEdge's category-level data shows clear winners:

• Airlines: American Airlines leads on Google AI Overviews at 26.6% and on ChatGPT at 25.3%. Its gap to United is 6.1 points on Google AI Overviews and 9.1 points on ChatGPT.
• Cruise lines: Royal Caribbean leads on both engines, at 24.8% and 28.8%. Royal Caribbean and Carnival show higher visibility in the ChatGPT sample, while Viking shows lower visibility.
• Hotels: Hilton leads Google AI Overviews at 28.3%; Marriott leads ChatGPT at 29.4%.
• Booking platforms: Expedia leads, at 31.3% share of voice on Google AI Overviews.

BrightEdge notes its category rankings cover hotels, airlines, booking platforms and cruise lines, with non-travel platforms such as YouTube and Reddit excluded from category rankings.

The pattern fits long-standing consumer behavior. Advertising rests on the premise that the better-known product is the more likely choice, and that satisfied consumers stick with what they chose. Big brands that consumers already know and trust win their sectors in AI answers much as they do in classic search.

Where do booking platforms show up most?

Price-focused queries are the stronghold of booking platforms, the data shows. Booking platforms appear in 78% of budget-related Google AI Overviews answers — those involving terms like "cheap," "deal," "budget" or "last-minute" — compared with 17% of other answers. Expedia alone appears in 44% of the budget-related answers.

Intent type also shapes visibility:

• 38% of booking-intent prompts on Google AI Overviews name a booking platform, against 12% of inspiration prompts.
• Only 9% of tracked Google AI Overviews prompts have booking intent.
• Inspiration and comparison queries account for most of the tracked panel.

BrightEdge cautions that this is an observed association, not evidence that using price-related words causes a brand to appear. Still, the firm suggests price-focused questions are an important area for booking platforms to track.

What opening exists for smaller sites?

Subjective, inspiration-style queries tell a different story. BrightEdge found that results containing user-generated content and content with a human-experience quality tend to perform better for inspiration queries. Big brands dominate less in those answers, creating space for platforms like Reddit and YouTube.

BrightEdge states: "Platforms and organizations such as YouTube, Reddit and AAA are more prominent in inspiration questions. Hotels and cruise lines feature more heavily in comparison questions, while booking platforms appear more often in booking-intent questions."

BrightEdge did not speculate on why big brands underperform on these queries. One plausible read is that human-experience queries fall outside what large brands typically target. That leaves a bright spot for forums, Reddit, travel blogs and smaller travel sites that can deliver unique human insight, judgment and subjective opinion grounded in real experience.

There is a caveat for publishers eyeing that gap. UGC and platform rankings have historically been vulnerable to smart, aggressive content strategies. Travel bloggers can outcompete Reddit with genuine expertise, because expertise and authoritativeness have never been Reddit's strengths.

Queries that clearly belong to a specific category tend to be dominated by big brands. As in regular search, the key to breaking into most niches is building brand awareness and trust. Search rankings are heavily influenced by user behavior signals, and those rankings feed up the pipeline into AI chat answers.

For travel marketers, the immediate task is measuring visibility separately across inspiration, comparison and booking-intent prompts, since each intent type rewards a different kind of site — and only 9% of tracked prompts carry booking intent at all.