Question
Is traffic from AI assistants worth anything yet?
Short answer
Small in volume, better in quality. On one destination portal with 1.6 million sessions it converted at 8.26% against 3.88% for organic search.
Volume first, because that is where the honest answer starts. AI bots were 4.2% of HTML requests across 2025, less than Googlebot alone, and assistant referrals remain a small share of arrivals for most travel businesses. Anyone describing this as a replacement for search traffic today is describing a forecast, not a measurement.
Quality is where it gets interesting. A longitudinal study of one Mediterranean destination portal, covering 1.6 million sessions from April 2022 to January 2026, found traffic arriving from AI assistants converted at 8.26% against 3.88% from organic search, with shorter sessions. That is what you would expect if the comparison work happened inside the assistant before the click.
So the reasonable position is neither of the two being sold. It is not yet a volume channel, and it is already a qualified one. A visitor who arrives having been told you fit has fewer reasons to leave.
Why credible sources differ
One portal is not a sector, the destination is not named, and the conversion measure is a booking-intent click rather than a confirmed booking. Several widely quoted conversion figures in this field, including an 11.4% against 5.3% pair, are all-web cross-industry numbers being passed off as travel-specific.