AI doesn't recommend whoever has the prettiest website. It recommends whoever gets mentioned most.

People planning a retreat today no longer open just Google. They open ChatGPT and type "best surf camp in Portugal for a total beginner". The answer isn't a page of ten links: it's a name, maybe three. Whoever is on that list exists. The others, for that person, don't.

And this is not a niche phenomenon. ChatGPT passed 900 million weekly users in February 2026, double the year before. In travel the weight is even more direct: Graphite's research on which questions surface products in AI answers puts travel among the categories where the engines name concrete businesses most often. Translated: when someone asks ChatGPT about a yoga retreat in Bali, ChatGPT names names. The question is whether yours is among them.

How the AI chooses (and why your website alone isn't enough)

One technical thing needs understanding here, explained simply. When you ask ChatGPT about travel or venues, the system doesn't answer from memory: it first runs a web search, then summarizes the pages it found. The professionals call it RAG, but the concept is an assistant skimming ten articles and giving you a digest.

The practical consequence is explained well by Ethan Smith, CEO of Graphite, the agency that has done the most serious research on this: the more often your name appears in the pages the AI consults for that question, the more likely the AI is to suggest you. Your website is only one of those pages. The other nine are "best retreats in..." articles, Reddit discussions, Facebook group threads, reviews, videos.

The numbers confirm the weight of outside voices. An AirOps study cited by Graphite measured that brands are 6.5 times more likely to be cited by AI engines through third-party sites than through their own domain. And 2026 research from 5WPR found that Wikipedia and Reddit alone account for over 25% of all ChatGPT citations in the United States, while outlets like the New York Times don't even crack the top 20. The AI trusts conversations and independent sources more than press releases.

There's a useful distinction though, again from Smith: the more generic the question ("best surf camps in Europe"), the more external mentions matter. The more specific the question ("surf camp in Portugal that works for a woman traveling alone in October"), the more your own site can win on its own, because for niche questions the engines pull directly from product pages. You need to work both fronts. Here's how, in order of effort.

1. Turn your website into one that answers questions

Start with the front you control 100%. Most retreat websites say "about us" and "our experiences". The AI doesn't look for introductions: it looks for clear answers to precise questions.

The method Graphite validated with its clients isn't one page per question, but one page covering a cluster of similar questions. Concrete example: a page titled "Surf camps for beginners: everything you need to know" that answers "do I need experience?", "which season should I pick?", "what do I pack?", "I'm coming alone, is that a problem?", "what does it cost on average?". A person asking ChatGPT any of those questions can land on your answer, and ChatGPT can cite you as a source.

Write the answers the way you'd say them to a guest on the phone: complete, direct, zero brochure-speak. You already have the right questions: they're the ones arriving on your WhatsApp every week.

2. Find out who the AI cites for your questions, and get yourself in there

This is the move almost none of your competitors make, and Graphite calls it citation optimization. It works like this: you ask ChatGPT the questions your ideal guest would ask ("best yoga retreats in Costa Rica", "affordable surf camps in Morocco in November") and note which sites get cited as sources in the answer. Repeat the same question three or four times on different days, because the answers shift.

Those cited sites are your work list. If ChatGPT keeps pulling from the same "10 best retreats in Bali" article and you're not in it, writing to the author to introduce yourself is worth more than six months of Instagram posts. Travel bloggers, niche publications, vertical portals: every inclusion in a page the AI already consults is one more door into the answer.

3. Answer people's real questions, where they ask them

Reddit, travel Facebook groups, forums: they're among the sources the AI reads most, and they fill up daily with questions you can answer better than anyone. "What's the best season for beginner surfing in Costa Rica?" "Is a yoga retreat better in September or June?"

Answer as a real person, saying who you are: "Hi, I'm Sam, I've run a surf camp in Santa Teresa for six years. For a beginner the best window is December to March: softer waves and smaller crowds." You help someone, and meanwhile your name lands in a place the AI considers trustworthy.

Two warnings. First: no copy-paste, no links scattered everywhere, no fake accounts. Communities smell it instantly and burn you, and your camp's name burns with you. Second: don't bet everything on Reddit. Its share of ChatGPT citations collapsed from around 60% to around 10% in two weeks in September 2025, when OpenAI reweighted its sources. That's exactly why mentions need building across several channels, never just one.

4. Introduce yourself the same way, everywhere

The last move costs one afternoon. Use the same name and the same short description, what you are and where you are, everywhere: website, Google profile, socials, industry portals. If your website says "Casa Aurora Retreat", Google says "Aurora Yoga Bali" and Instagram says "casaaurora_official", to the AI you're three different businesses, and none of the three accumulates enough mentions to get recommended.

What not to do

This matters as much as the four moves above. First: be wary of anyone selling you "technical AI optimization" made of audits, page speed and special code. Smith, whose job this is, calls it the most likely great waste of time in the industry: in his tests it doesn't move results. Second: be wary of miracle case studies. Traffic from ChatGPT is growing for everyone because ChatGPT usage is growing; whoever shows you a +200% without a control group is showing you the tide, not their boat.

One last piece of honesty: today the AI inspires more than it books. SiteMinder data from late 2025 says travelers use AI to dream and compare, then book with brands they trust. For you that's good news: if the AI names you, the booking still lands on your website and your WhatsApp. Provided that, when that person looks you up, they find a site that answers.

So far, the map

The real work starts after: figuring out the exact questions your ideal guest asks, which sources the AI consults for them, and covering those consistently without it becoming a second job. Building sites optimized for both conversion and AI answers (GEO) is what we do at GYT, so if you'd like to know which questions your retreat currently shows up for in front of the AI, and which ones it vanishes from, it's one of the first things we look at together in a free audit.

Sources & references

1. TechCrunch · "ChatGPT reaches 900M weekly active users" (February 27, 2026) · https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/27/chatgpt-reaches-900m-weekly-active-users/ · 900M weekly users, doubling year over year. Verified July 2026.
2. Graphite (Ethan Smith) · "Ultimate Guide to AEO" · https://graphite.io/five-percent/aeo-is-the-new-seo · LLM+RAG mechanism, citation optimization, owned vs earned, travel among top "product question" categories, futility of technical AEO, skepticism toward case studies. Pre-approved expert source. Verified July 2026.
3. AirOps (cited by Graphite/leadwithai) · https://www.leadwithai.co/article/ethan-smith-graphite-answer-engine-optimization · 6.5x figure: citation probability via third-party sources vs own domain. Verified July 2026.
4. 5WPR Research (via PRNewswire) · https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wikipedia-and-reddit-now-drive-over-25-of-chatgpt-citations-in-the-us-new-5w-research-finds--wsj-nyt-and-bloomberg-do-not-appear-in-the-top-20-302768339.html · Wikipedia 13.15% + Reddit 11.97% of US ChatGPT citations; major outlets absent from top 20. Verified July 2026.
5. SaaS Intelligence / Search Engine Land · https://saasintelligence.substack.com/p/reddits-ai-citation-share-just-grew · Reddit citation collapse from ~60% to ~10% in two weeks (September 2025), source volatility. Verified July 2026.
6. SiteMinder / Hospitality Net · https://www.hospitalitynet.org/editorial/4131925/travelers-use-ai-to-dream-trusted-brands-to-book-travel-hit-116-trillion-in-2025-siteminder-connects-53000-hotels-to-ai-platforms · Travelers use AI for inspiration/comparison but book with trusted brands. Verified July 2026.