Before generative AI, websites lived and died by SEO. The goal was simple: include the right words, the right headings, the right amount of persuasive copy, and Google would reward you with a higher ranking. Websites were built to entice humans.
Tourism websites are probably the best example of this. Words like "breathtaking" and "luxurious" are everywhere. A website I used to maintain has a main heading of "Luxury Accommodation", followed by a subheading of "Discover Luxury Accommodation", and under that, a new section titled "Luxury Wellness Retreat." Wrapped around all of this is descriptive fluff text designed to nudge the visitor toward making a booking.
Prior to generative AI, this was the right approach. Give the viewer descriptive words and beautiful images, and let the feeling do the work.
New requirements
With the emergence of generative AI, more travellers are now turning to AI for tourism recommendations. Where they once browsed "top 10 places to visit" listings or scrolled through specific tourism websites, they're now just asking an AI.
Studies suggest around 40% of travellers now rely on AI for this purpose, and that number is climbing.
This raises an important question: how does a tourism-dependent business get found through AI?
There's no simple answer. What AI recommends depends on the questions being asked, the way they're asked, the user's preferences, and a whole mix of other factors. What is clear is that AI doesn't hand you a page two. It gives you a list, and while you can prompt it for more options, businesses that don't show up in that first response may simply not show up at all.
The role of websites
AI is driven by data. Good reviews on Google or Tripadvisor influence whether a place gets recommended, but so does the information sitting on the website itself.
AI works on facts, not feelings. The marketing language that once charmed human visitors doesn't register the same way with AI. So websites now need to do double duty. They still need the descriptive copy to connect with visitors, but that copy needs to be backed up by real, concrete information that AI can actually use.
It's still absolutely fine to describe something as breathtaking or luxurious. But the page also needs to explain why. What makes it luxurious? What specific features does a guest experience when they arrive? What does breathtaking actually look like? The views, the location, the surroundings?
The website is still a critical piece of the puzzle, but its role has shifted. It's no longer just a sales page for humans, it's also a data source for AI, and the businesses that understand this will have a real advantage.
Final thoughts
While this shift is particularly visible in tourism, given how many travellers are now using AI for recommendations, the change isn't limited to that industry. Tourism is just a very clear and relatable example of something that's happening across the board.
Web design is still critical. But the content now needs to work for SEO, for AI, and for the actual human reading it. When done well, all three benefit, because the information becomes genuinely more useful, more honest, and more complete.
In a way, this might be pushing websites back toward something closer to what they were before SEO and marketing copy took over. More information-rich, more descriptive in a meaningful sense, less reliant on vague adjectives to do the heavy lifting.
Whether the industry fully embraces that shift remains to be seen. But the logic points in that direction, and the businesses that get there first will be better placed for how people are searching now.
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