If there’s one hill I’m willing to die on, it’s that a strategy built around search is one of the smartest investments a destination can make—the kind that keeps working even while you sleep. Unlike ads that vanish the moment you stop paying, strong search visibility compounds over time, quietly driving qualified visitors long after it’s published.
For years, organic search visibility has been treated as an afterthought in destination marketing—something to check off after running social media campaigns or digital ads.
But as traveler behavior evolves and AI begins shaping how information is found, search is moving from the sidelines to the center stage. It’s now the bridge between where curiosity starts and where decisions get made.
And that’s good news for DMOs. Especially ones who move fast, think lean, and play smart.
This shift isn’t a threat to marketing as we know it, it’s an opening. A rare moment when behavior, technology, and authenticity have aligned in a way that rewards destinations that understand what travelers actually want: real answers, real voices, and real help planning their trips.
To understand where the opportunity lies, it helps to start with what’s stayed the same, and what’s evolving fast.
Google continues to dominate global search, holding steady at around 90% market share. In 2024, it processed more than 13 billion searches every day, up from roughly 8.5 billion just three years earlier. Search demand isn’t slowing down; it’s accelerating.
And that growth isn’t just because people are spending more time online. Search has become the connective thread behind nearly every digital action.
We use it to find dinner, validate a TikTok recommendation, check store hours, or plan an entire weekend getaway. Even when discovery starts elsewhere, Google still acts as the internet’s fact-checker.
But things are changing. Google may still be where most searches begin, but it’s no longer where they all happen. People are spreading their searches across multiple platforms—and fast.
Search is everywhere. Travelers move fluidly between platforms—watching trip recaps on TikTok, checking reviews on Google Maps, asking AI for itineraries, and using voice for quick answers.
And increasingly, they’re getting what they need without ever clicking through. Nearly 60% of Google searches now end without a single website visit—a clear sign that people are satisfied with the snippets, maps, and AI summaries they see on the page.
The takeaway is that search is bigger than ever, but visibility works differently. You’re not just competing for rankings anymore, you’re competing to be the answer.
As search results evolve into full answers, the next question becomes: what kind of answers do people actually want?
A few years ago, travelers searched—“weekend getaways near Chicago.”
Now they ask, “What’s an easy weekend trip within three hours of Chicago with cozy cabins and good coffee shops?”
The difference isn’t just longer queries. It’s higher expectations. People want tailored, trustworthy recommendations that feel made for them.
They want clarity without the sales pitch. They want to know why one neighborhood fits better than another, or which hike has the best waterfall views for a morning visit.
They’re not looking for lists. They’re looking for guidance, for someone to help them make confident decisions faster. And they want it all to come from someone they trust.
Search behavior has evolved from finding options to finding confidence.
And that shift is reshaping how destinations earn visibility.
TikTok may not be a search engine in the traditional sense, but it has completely rewired what people expect from one.
Its influence isn’t about where travelers start their search. It’s about what they now expect everywhere else.
TikTok taught people to trust unfiltered, first-hand perspectives: real voices over brand voices, messy enthusiasm over polished marketing. Someone filming in their car, makeup-free, describing their favorite ramen shop now carries more weight than a glossy visitor guide.
That raw, conversational tone has become the new language of trust.
So even if your destination has no TikTok presence, the expectations it created are already shaping how travelers interpret your Google listings, your blog posts, and even your FAQ pages. When people go back to Google or ask Siri a question, they want that same human clarity with real help, not corporate jargon.
Authenticity has quietly become a signal for search engine visibility, whether Google names it that or not.
For years, visibility favored the biggest budgets. Whoever could afford the most ads or the most content usually won.
But that’s not how travelers are searching anymore.
Today, what wins is usefulness. The destinations rising in visibility are the ones creating content that actually helps people plan. Not slogans. Not taglines. Answers.
That shift changes everything for smaller destinations.
You don’t need to outspend anyone. You just need to out-help them.
When the competition is measured by clarity, honesty, and relevance instead of ad dollars, local expertise becomes your superpower. You already know the nuances of your community—the best time to visit, the shortcuts locals take, the coffee shop that opens early before the trailhead crowds arrive.
The key is simply to communicate what you already know, in the way travelers now expect to hear it: conversational, specific, and human.
By next year, the vast majority of travelers will use AI tools at some point during their trip planning since 78% of travelers believe it improves the process. They’ll be getting full itineraries, recommendations, and packing lists, and often without ever visiting a website, thanks to AI overviews and single-answer replies.
Think about it: a traveler might ask ChatGPT to plan a weekend in North Carolina and get a full itinerary in seconds, sometimes before they ever click through to you. That’s a wake-up call: your content now has to work in two places at once—on your site and inside the answers people see.
The better your content explains who you are, what you offer, and why it matters, the more likely these tools are to feature you.
For the first time, success isn’t dictated by how big your budget is, but by how well you understand your audience and communicate what makes your place special.
When the rules of discovery are rewritten around authenticity, helpfulness, and human tone, the destinations that know themselves best finally have a chance to win.
Search hasn’t died—it’s just grown up. And it’s inviting you to do the same.
