AI traffic to travel sites is booming as shoppers look for the best holiday deal without doing any research

• Adobe sees major growth in AI referrals to travel sites
• Rich, structured content is the best way to ensure AI engine visibility
• Hotels lead the way, airlines fall short in being fully accessible to LLMs

Combined traffic analysis and market research has led Adobe to observe a 194% year-over-year rise in traffic to US travel websites, and an even more astounding 2,215% rise since it first started tracking AI referrals in October 2024.

The data implies that AI is being used for much more than research, as its use cases span planning, recommendations, packing and even budgeting.

With 86% of travellers believing that AI has improved their travel planning experience, it's clear that consumers are finding better recommendations, producing more personalized itineraries and getting access to cheaper prices, making it a go-to for financially savvy consumers.

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AI traffic to travel sites reveals an important trend

While AI traffic still converts around 28% worse than traditional traffic, Adobe says this is changing and the gap has narrowed by almost 70% since October 2024. Now, AI-referred users spend 70% longer on websites, are 21% more engaged and have 41% lower bounce rates, which could translate to more purchasing intent.

With this in mind, travel websites must capitalize on this new type of traffic by optimizing pages for LLMs. Adobe says "rich, structured content" is to thank for the success levels hotel websites have already seen, but airline websites are falling behind.

Adobe used its own AI Content Visibility Checker metrics to reveal that hotels and car rental companies perform best across both the home page and product pages, but even then, around a third of the content is still unreadable by AI.

"As consumer adoption of AI tools accelerates, brands must ensure their digital presence is not only engaging for humans, but fully accessible to machines as well," the company summarized.

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