A family in Toronto is planning a week in Tobago. Instead of scrolling through pages of search results, they ask an AI assistant: a quiet place near the beach, good for children, somewhere local to eat, a reef tour that isn’t too crowded. In seconds they have a short list. A few names, a few reasons, a few links.
The guesthouses, restaurants and tour operators on that list will get the enquiries. The rest were never considered. AI is becoming the first front desk many visitors meet, and it only recommends what it can find, understand and trust.
What was said at this year’s State of the Tourism Industry Conference?
At the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s State of the Tourism Industry Conference in Georgetown, Guyana, in October 2026, Kevon Wilson, chief operating officer of the consultancy Leve Global, warned that Caribbean tourism businesses are not keeping pace with how travellers now plan trips. As reported by CNC3:
- the share of US travellers using generative AI for trip planning has risen from 8% to 24% in two years;
- Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic are among the Caribbean’s early AI adopters;
- yet, by his estimate, only 12% of Caribbean businesses use AI effectively, while around 85% of Caribbean businesses are small or medium-sized.
His point was simple: AI assistants are “not showing you 20, 30, 40, 50 pages anymore. They’re recommending the top two or top three.” If they can’t find a business online, they won’t recommend it.
How reliable are those figures?
The travel figure has a clear source. Deloitte’s 2025 Holiday Travel Survey of 3,896 Americans found that use of generative AI for travel planning was expected to reach 24% that season, triple the rate of two years earlier. It measures what people planned to do, and it covers US travellers, who are among the Caribbean’s largest visitor markets.
The Caribbean business figures (12% using AI effectively, 85% small or medium-sized) were given by Mr Wilson in his presentation. The report does not say where they come from, so treat them as an informed estimate rather than a measured result. The direction, though, matches what we see when we check what AI assistants say about Caribbean businesses: in our own checks of everyday Caribbean questions in September 2026, only one of 23 sources the assistants relied on was a business’s own website.
Why does being in the top two or three matter so much?
Because there is no page two. A list of search results let a visitor scroll past the big names to find a small guesthouse or a family-run tour. An AI answer usually names a handful of options and explains why. If your business isn’t one of them, the visitor may never know it exists.
And the clicks are real. In September 2026, BrightEdge reported that visits sent to websites from ChatGPT more than doubled between January and August, as we explained in ChatGPT Now Sends 95% of AI Referral Traffic. Increasingly, the assistant can also take the next step and help book, which we cover in From UX to AX.
Does AI make every destination sound the same?
It can, and that is the risk the region’s tourism leaders are naming. Ahead of the CTO’s AI Tourism Bootcamp on World Tourism Day, Narendra Ramgulam, the Trinidadian who serves as the CTO’s Deputy Director of Sustainable Tourism, said in an interview on Daybreak, Compass Media’s morning show in the Cayman Islands, that AI “doesn’t know the Caribbean in the way that Caribbean people know the Caribbean”. His advice: make sure “AI helps us tell our stories rather than telling our stories for us.”
The CTO’s Secretary-General, Dona Regis-Prosper, made the same point: Caribbean tourism is built on human connection, and technology “should support those strengths, not take their place.” Mr Wilson added at SOTIC that “authenticity is the new goal”: as AI-made images and captions become common, visitors will value the real thing more.
Here is the useful part. Authenticity is not only what visitors want. It is also what AI assistants need. An assistant can’t recommend “a warm welcome and beautiful views”. It can recommend, say, a guesthouse that is a five-minute walk from Pigeon Point, serves breakfast with local bake and saltfish, has a ground-floor room for a guest with limited mobility and arranges reef tours with a named local skipper. The specific, first-hand detail that makes your business distinct is exactly what gets it chosen.
What should a Caribbean tourism business do now?
- Ask the assistants. Put the questions your visitors ask into ChatGPT, Gemini and Google, for example “best family guesthouse in Tobago near the beach” or “where to eat local food in Port of Spain”. Note whether you appear, what is said and which websites are quoted. Date it.
- Write down your facts. Rates or “from” prices, what’s included, room types, accessibility, transfers, seasonal opening, cancellation and deposit terms, and the questions guests ask every week. Keep them in one checked place.
- Put them on your website as text. Not only in a PDF, an image or “message us for rates”. Add short, clear answers to common questions, and describe your photos with alt text so machines know what they show.
- Make your details match everywhere. Same name, address, phone, hours and description on your website, Google Business Profile, Tripadvisor, booking platforms, Facebook, Instagram and your tourism agency’s directory.
- Earn real reviews and mentions. Ask happy guests for reviews, and look for mentions in local news, travel guides and partner websites. AI assistants trust what others say about you more than what you say about yourself.
- Make booking easy for people and machines. A short booking or enquiry form with clearly labelled fields, accurate listings on the booking platforms you use, and a person confirming anything that commits money.
- Tell your own story. Use AI to help with drafting and organising, but keep the real people, places and details at the centre. That is what makes you recommendable.
This is the work we do at UX Caribbean: see where you stand, capture what you know, make it visible and keep it current. Our AI Visibility Audit tests the questions your visitors ask across the main assistants and compares the answers with what you know to be true.
Frequently asked questions
How many travellers use AI to plan trips?
Deloitte’s 2025 Holiday Travel Survey found that 24% of US travellers expected to use generative AI to plan holiday travel, triple the rate of two years earlier. Other surveys give different figures depending on how “use” is defined, but all show fast growth.
How do I get my hotel or tour recommended by ChatGPT?
No one can guarantee it. What helps is clear, specific facts about your business on your own website, the same details everywhere you are listed, genuine reviews, and mentions on other trusted websites. AI assistants recommend what they can find, understand and check.
What are AEO and GEO?
They are industry terms for making a business easy for AI to find and quote. AEO (answer engine optimisation) aims to make your business the direct answer to a question. GEO (generative engine optimisation) aims to get it named and cited by assistants such as ChatGPT and Gemini. We explain both in GEO vs SEO.
What is alt text and why does it matter?
Alt text is a short written description attached to an image on a website. It helps people using screen readers, and it tells search engines and AI what the photo shows, for example “beachfront room with a view of Pigeon Point”. Without it, your best photos say nothing to a machine.
Will using AI make my business sound like everyone else?
Only if AI writes your story for you. Use it to organise and draft, but keep the specific, first-hand details: the people, the place, the food, the exceptions. Those details make you distinct to visitors and give AI assistants a real reason to recommend you.
Where should a small tourism business start?
Write down the ten questions guests ask most often and your real answers, then make sure each answer appears clearly on your website and listings. Then ask an AI assistant those same questions about your area and see who it recommends.
Sources
- Brent Pinheiro, Travellers are using AI to plan trips; Caribbean businesses aren’t ready, CNC3, 8 October 2026. Report of Kevon Wilson’s presentation at the CTO State of the Tourism Industry Conference; the Caribbean business figures are his and their source is not stated.
- Deloitte, While Holiday Travel Intent Rises, Planned Spending Hits Turbulence (2025 Holiday Travel Survey), 12 November 2025. Survey of 3,896 Americans, 26 September to 3 October 2025; figures are planned use.
- Travel And Tour World, Caribbean Tourism Enters New Digital Era As AI Innovation Reshapes Future Travel Growth, 28 September 2026. Includes statements by CTO Secretary-General Dona Regis-Prosper on the World Tourism Day AI Tourism Bootcamp.
- Narendra Ramgulam, CTO Deputy Director of Sustainable Tourism, interview on Daybreak, Compass Media (Cayman Islands), ahead of the CTO AI Tourism Bootcamp, September 2026.
- BrightEdge, ChatGPT Referral Traffic More Than Doubles in 2026, 24 September 2026. BrightEdge sells AI search tracking software.
- UX Caribbean, The Button Didn’t Die. It Moved., September 2026.