AI SEARCH VISIBILITY FOR NZ TOURISM
You can be number one on Google & invisible to AI.
Around 40 per cent of travellers now plan trips with AI tools like ChatGPT, and the travellers searching what to do in New Zealand are no exception. When someone asks for the best tours, activities or places to stay, AI names a shortlist and leaves everyone else out. Run a free AI visibility check and find out whether your tourism business makes the answer.
Found. Chosen. Trusted.
AI hands travellers a shortlist of names. Getting on it comes down to trust and authority.
Three things decide whether AI recommends you. We build all three.
Found
On Google
Google still carries the largest share of high-intent travel searches, and it is also where AI reads who you are. We make sure you show up for the queries that turn into bookings, and that your presence across the web gives AI a clear, consistent picture of your business.
Chosen
In AI search
When travellers ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Copilot to plan a trip, they get back a shortlist of operators by name. That shortlist is the whole decision. We get your business onto it, for the trips and experiences you want to be booked for.
Trusted
The authority that earns it
AI does not recommend at random. It names the operators it reads as the most established and trusted in their category, through brand authority, reviews, citations and a consistent presence across the platforms it draws on. This is the engine of GEO, and it is the work that keeps your name in the answer.
The playbook shift
Being number one on Google used to be enough. Now travellers ask AI who to book.
Here is what changes when your marketing catches up to how travellers actually choose.
Yesterday's playbook
- A tidy website and a strong Google ranking, then waiting for the bookings to follow.
- Monthly reports full of rankings and traffic, with no line for the bookings that paid the bills.
- AI search treated as something to keep an eye on, while travellers already plan whole trips with it.
- One channel optimised, Google, while the shortlist a traveller acts on is built somewhere else.
- Generic tactics borrowed from other industries, applied to a tourism business they do not really understand.
Found and chosen with Colab
- Visible across Google and the AI tools travellers actually plan with: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot.
- Reporting that leads with bookings and enquiries, the numbers that matter, not vanity rankings.
- Named in the AI shortlist now, while the field is still open, not once your competitors are already there.
- Every surface a traveller touches covered: search, AI answers, reviews and Maps, run as one strategy.
- 25 years in tourism behind every call, so the strategy fits how your operation and your travellers really work.
What happens next
From an AI visibility score to a plan, in three steps
The audit is the start. Here is exactly how we turn it into something you can act on.
Run your audit
Enter your website above. We check whether ChatGPT recommends your business, and score the 40+ signals that decide whether AI engines surface you at all.
Get your full report
We send the complete breakdown in plain English: where travellers using AI will find you, where you are being missed, and the quickest wins to fix it.
Book your strategy call
Fifteen minutes with our team to turn the gaps into a clear, costed plan for AI search. Useful whether or not you ever work with us.
Prefer email? Reach us at zap@colabmarketing.co.nz
Why Colab
25 years in New Zealand tourism. Now helping operators win AI search.
Colab has spent a career helping New Zealand tourism operators get found and chosen, from regional icons to nationwide brands. The channels have changed, the job has not. Today that means generative engine optimisation, often called GEO: making sure the AI engines your visitors ask know who you are, describe you accurately, and put you in the answer. We pair that with the SEO, advertising and strategy work it builds on, all under one roof in Auckland.
Trusted by operators including Stray Travel, Sid Fogg's Australia, The Island Group, Myhub Holiday Parks and the Duke of Marlborough Hotel.
- + AI search readiness scored against 40+ signals
- + Plain-English reporting, no jargon
- + SEO, GEO and paid media under one roof
- + New Zealand owned and operated
Questions operators ask us
AI search, answered in plain English
What is AI search optimisation, or GEO?
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the work of making sure AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity find, trust and recommend your business when people ask them questions. It complements traditional SEO: rankings get you found in Google, GEO gets you named in AI answers.
Why does my tourism business not show up in ChatGPT?
Usually because the signals AI engines rely on are thin or inconsistent: sparse listings, unstructured website content, few trusted mentions across the wider web. A business can rank well on Google and still be invisible to AI. The free audit above shows where you stand.
Do travellers really use AI to plan New Zealand trips?
Yes. Around 40 per cent of travellers worldwide now use AI tools in trip planning, and the share is growing each year. Visitors increasingly ask AI for tours, accommodation and itineraries before they ever reach Google, which is why AI visibility now matters to NZ operators.
How is GEO different from the SEO work we already do?
They overlap, and good SEO is the foundation. GEO adds work SEO does not cover: how AI engines describe your brand, whether they cite you as a source, and how consistently you appear across repeated answers. We measure both, and report them side by side.
See exactly where your business stands in AI search.
Travellers are already asking. Find out what AI tells them, free.
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