Marketing to Your Most Important Ambassador: AI

David Kenworthy, MMGY

Colorado Governor's Tourism Conference

Quick takes

**David Kenworthy**VP Product & Innovation

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colorado.com

The fastest adoption curve in history

Time from launch to 100 million users

ChatGPT

1 billion

weekly users. OpenAI, June 2026.

Gemini

1 billion

monthly users. Google, August 2026.

Usage figures: OpenAI, June 2026; Google, August 2026. Adoption curve: time from launch to 100 million users (verify before use).

F = μN

Travel is the prime use case

#1

industry category of ChatGPT queries

40%

of travelers already plan with AI

+2,215%

AI referral traffic to travel sites, Oct 2024 to May 2026

Trip planning starts weeks before any money moves. That's where the destination gets decided.

DTTT / Semrush AI Visibility Index, 126M prompts.

Three numbers only on screen; the rest live here.

Travel and hospitality is the #1 industry category of ChatGPT queries (DTTT / Semrush AI Visibility Index, 126M prompts). 40% of travelers globally already plan trips with AI. AI referral traffic to travel sites up 2,215% between October 2024 and May 2026.

Backup if needed: 91% of millennial and Gen Z travelers using AI to plan (Klook 2026 Travel Pulse, 11,000 surveyed). AI referral traffic converts 42% better than every other channel and nearly doubled year on year (Adobe, April 2026).

Say: commerce is the other giant use case. But commerce has a transaction to fight over. Trip planning starts weeks before any money moves, and that early stage is where the destination gets decided. We are arguing over the cheapest, earliest, most valuable moment in the whole funnel.

They stopped browsing.

1They ask.
2They don't click.
3The trip starts and ends in the chat window.
4They expect it to be about them.

… So what is the purpose of a website?

Destination intelligence

Stop competing for the click.
Supply the answer.

Be the central source of trusted intelligence about the place you own. For humans, and for machines.

Today in 2 parts

Part 1

How does it work?

Part 2

How do we measure success, and what does winning look like?

Part 1How does it work?

Two methods of retrieval

Memory

Everything ever published.
Frozen at a cutoff date.

Search

Goes to the web when the question demands freshness.

36.3%

of answers about destinations were written with no live search at all. Two answers in five come from memory.

MMGY destination study, 2026.

The model doesn't search what you typed

"Best mountain towns for a summer family trip?"

best mountain towns families summer 2026

family friendly mountain resorts colorado

top summer mountain destinations ranked

mountain town official site things to do

alpine coaster gondola kids

rocky mountain national park family

10.6

searches behind an average destination question

MMGY destination study, 2026.

What the searches are hunting

% of destination questions producing at least one search of this type

"official site"

1,115

the most common phrase in every search the models ran, place names stripped

MMGY destination study, 2026.

The rival set you didn't choose

43.5%

of the model's own searches name a rival destination. 7.4 rivals per question.

Destination	Rivals the model brought in
Explore Asheville	Paris, Tokyo, New Orleans, Aspen
Love Beverly Hills	Paris, Tokyo, London, Maldives
Revelstoke	Whistler, Banff, Jackson Hole, Chamonix
Ski Utah	Niseko, Zermatt, Verbier, then Idaho
Visit Fort Myers	Key West, Miami, Naples, Orlando

MMGY destination study, 2026.

Who the ambassador actually reads

share of 24,878 citations

MMGY destination study, 2026.

Who the ambassador actually reads. 24,878 citations traced to source across 8 DMOs.

Independent blogs and creators 54.7%. Travel and news media 9.7%. Booking and OTA 8.9%. Other destinations' sites 7.7%. Your own DMO site 6.0%. Enthusiast media 5.8%. Government and public lands 3.3%. Wikipedia 1.1%. Review platforms 0.2%.

Say the two uncomfortable things: over half the evidence is written by people nobody commissioned. And rival DMO sites out-cite your own site, 7.7 against 6.0.

Individual bloggers (globalgrasshopper, travelbabbo) are cited across eight to ten destinations, the same portability as Conde Nast Traveler.

One line on the social layer: YouTube shows up in 7% of ski prompts, Gemini leans on Reddit. Snippable beats polished. Don't spend more than a sentence on it.

Absent at discovery. Dominant at confirmation.

1.4%

your site's share of citations BEFORE the model names you

→

29.1%

AFTER. The single largest source in the answer.

MMGY destination study, 2026.

Write answers, not ads

74% land two or more levels down.

what kind of page gets cited

Itineraries & trip planning28%
Editorial stories17%
About pages & fact sheets15%
Neighbourhood & group guides4%
General listings19%

64% go to pages built to answer a specific question.

MMGY destination study, 2026.

Part 2How do we measure success, and what does winning look like?

Visibility is the new traffic.

Old metrics measured your website. New metrics measure your destination's presence in the world.

Share of voiceOwn travel conversations.
PerceptionOwn how your destination is understood.
PresenceBe everywhere travelers are searching.
AuthorityBe the definitive voice on your destination.

Trust

36.3%

of the models' searches went looking for the "official site"

Being official gets you retrieved.
Being verifiable gets you believed.

Fact sheets. FAQs in real questions. Dated pages. The same facts everywhere the machine looks. Show your sources.

MMGY destination study, 2026.

Taste

Every answer is written for one person.

What survives synthesis is a point of view, with a person behind it.

Ownability

one of hundreds

definitional

you

Authority gets you retrieved.
Trust gets you cited.
Taste gets you chosen.

Be the answer.

dkenworthy@mmgy.com