ChatGPT Now Outpaces Google in APAC Travel Bookings

Two forces are reshaping travel across Asia-Pacific at the same time, and neither shows signs of slowing down.

The first is geopolitical. Middle East tensions have pushed APAC air traffic down 17% year-on-year in Q1 2026, according to Criteo's Spring/Summer 2026 Travel Pulse report. Long-haul routes have taken the hardest hit. Short-haul and medium-haul flights, by contrast, actually grew 1.0% and 1.8% respectively. The appetite for travel hasn't disappeared. It's just moved closer to home.

The second force is technological. ChatGPT now drives more travel booking page visits than traditional search. In March 2026, it outpaced Google by 13 percentage points, and 72% of Criteo's travel clients saw at least one ChatGPT-referred booking. That's not a trend. That's a structural shift.

The Long-Haul Collapse Is Creating Regional Winners

Nine major Middle East airports operated at just 53% of pre-conflict scheduled capacity in March and April 2026. 27 million passengers did not travel as planned during that period. Airfares on key long-haul routes have surged, with Bangkok-Frankfurt routes up more than 500%.

The beneficiaries are regional. Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia, is absorbing displaced travel demand as intra-Asia routes replace Europe and Middle East itineraries. Thailand's tourism authority has already pivoted its marketing spend toward neighboring APAC markets rather than long-haul European arrivals. For travel brands with a regional footprint, this is a net-new opportunity. For those dependent on long-haul volume, it's a structural problem.

AI Has Taken Over the Top of the Funnel

The booking journey itself has changed. Travelers in APAC now browse an average of 25 hotel listings before making a single booking. 66% cite good reviews as their top decision factor. The research phase has lengthened, and it increasingly starts in an AI chat interface rather than a search engine.

Japan and South Korea are leading the shift. 45% of Japanese travelers and 47% of South Koreans now use AI for end-to-end trip planning, compared to a global average of 30%. "In Japan and South Korea, nearly half of travellers are now turning to AI in their trip planning, a strong signal for the rest of APAC. How a hotel, airline, or destination is surfaced and described by AI now matters as much as how it's advertised," said Szi Wei Lo, Executive Managing Director APAC at Criteo.

Despite that discovery shift, OpenAI walked back ChatGPT's direct booking capabilities in March 2026. AI influences the decision. The actual transaction still happens on OTAs. Travel brands now face a two-layer challenge: show up in AI recommendations and close on traditional booking platforms.

What This Means for Travel Marketers

Hotel traffic in APAC spiked nearly 30% year-on-year. But OTA conversion rates fell 10% in the same period. More browsing, fewer bookings. The gap signals a hesitation problem that performance advertising alone won't fix.

Traffic to travel sites from AI sources surged 3,500% year-on-year. Yet 53% of APAC travelers still rate AI recommendations as generic, and 42% prefer familiar brands regardless. AI is functioning less as a discovery engine and more as a validation filter. Brands that travelers already know are the ones surfacing in AI results.

Skyscanner's mid-funnel work with Criteo offers a useful signal. By shifting optimization from raw clicks to Engaged Search Sessions (defined as sessions where users actually searched, not just landed), campaigns in India and Canada delivered a 67% ROI lift and an 80% increase in quality sessions.

As Szi Wei Lo puts it: "Travel brands no longer win simply by outbidding competitors. They win by making it easier for travellers to understand, compare and choose their offering." In a market where AI decides what gets seen first, content quality and brand familiarity are now the primary competitive levers.