Yes, reviews help tour and activity operators get recommended by AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. But the number of reviews is only part of it. AI tools care most about your star rating, how recent your reviews are, what your reviews actually say, and whether you respond to them.
Think of reviews as a filter before they are a ranking factor. In SOCi’s 2026 Local Visibility Index, which analyzed roughly 350,000 locations across 2,751 multi-location brands, ChatGPT recommended just 1.2% of them, and the locations it did recommend averaged a 4.3 star rating (SOCi). That study covers chains and franchises rather than independent operators, but the pattern holds: AI tools filter hard on reputation before they get anywhere near relevance. SOCi found that locations sitting near 3.4 stars with review response rates below 5% were effectively excluded from AI recommendations altogether.
For tour operators, this matters more than for most industries. Travel is the topic where ChatGPT is most likely to show its sources, citing them in 22.6% of travel answers compared with 6.8% across all answers, and by Similarweb’s categorisation, reviews and user-generated content accounted for 54.1% of what ChatGPT cited on travel queries (Search Engine Journal, reporting Similarweb data). So when a traveler asks “what’s the best kayak tour in Nashville?”, a large share of what the AI draws on was written by guests rather than by businesses.
This is no longer fringe behavior. Arival’s survey of 2,550 US and European travelers found roughly two in three now use AI to plan trips, rising to four in five among affluent travelers, up from just 8% of US travelers a year earlier (Arival).
AI assistants recommend tour operators they can confidently verify from independent sources. They don’t simply read your homepage and take your word for it. They look for third party proof that you are real, active and good at what you do.
When a traveler asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Claude for a recommendation, the tool usually pulls from a mix of these sources:
The AI then combines these signals to work out what you are known for. If your reviews keep mentioning “sunset”, “dolphins” and “great for kids”, those are the travel questions you are most likely to be recommended for.
In short: a traveler asks AI for a tour, the AI checks listings and reviews, filters by rating, recency and relevance, then names two or three operators. Reviews feed both the filter step (rating and recency) and the matching step (what guests say about you).
If you want to be cited, it helps to know which assistants cite anything at all. Our sister company TOMIS runs a proprietary AI visibility platform that logs every source each assistant shows when asked real trip-planning questions. Across 30,000+ answers about tour and activity operators:
| Assistant | Answers showing sources | Sources shown, on average |
|---|---|---|
| Perplexity | 99.9% | 10.7 |
| Claude | 98.3% | 6.0 |
| Gemini | 97.9% | 9.1 |
| Google AI Overviews | 85.7% | 7.1 |
| ChatGPT (search) | 39.9% | 1.7 |
Source: TOMIS ai.vis, 34,364 AI answers across 62 tour and activity operators, May–September 2026.
ChatGPT is the assistant most travelers use and the least likely to show where its answer came from — and when it does, it typically shows fewer than two sources. Reviews still shape what it says about you; they just rarely surface as a visible citation. Perplexity and Gemini are where being well reviewed shows up on the page.
Busted. Volume helps, but it isn’t the deciding factor. AI tools weigh rating, recency and relevance alongside count. An operator with 150 recent, detailed reviews can beat one with 2,000 reviews that mostly date back to 2019. As Arival puts it, an operator with 200 recent reviews across several platforms has materially stronger AI visibility than one with 15 reviews from three years ago (Arival).
Busted, but the gate sits lower than most people assume, and it moves by platform. Locations recommended by ChatGPT average 4.3 stars, Perplexity 4.2 and Gemini 3.9 (SOCi). Read that last number carefully: Gemini routinely recommends businesses rated below 4 stars, so there is no single cutoff that applies everywhere. What SOCi did find is that locations near 3.4 stars with response rates under 5% were effectively invisible. The practical version: get clear of 4.0, treat 4.3 and above as the competitive range, and don’t assume rating alone gets you in.
Busted. AI assistants look for signs that you are operating well right now. The booking platforms are explicit about this too: Viator’s ranking guidance counts review recency in its calculation, and GetYourGuide states in its supply partner help centre that recent reviews count more toward an activity’s overall rating (Arival). A steady flow of new reviews each month tells the AI your business is active and your recent guests are happy. A long gap tells it the opposite, even if your older reviews are glowing.
Busted. AI tools read the text, not just the stars. A review that says “Our guide Jess took us to see the glowworms and was brilliant with our two kids” tells the AI your tour location, the experience and who it suits. A bare five stars tells it almost nothing. Written reviews give the AI the words it needs to match you with specific traveler questions.
Busted. Different AI tools lean on different sources, and the gap between them is wide. SOCi’s 2026 index found Yelp accounted for 10.5% of AI citations on local queries, while brands responded to just 3.1% of their Yelp reviews, the widest response gap of any platform measured (SOCi).
TOMIS measured the same fragmentation directly for tour and activity operators. Across every citation their platform logged:
| Share of citations | Tripadvisor | Yelp | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perplexity | 8.3% | 3.2% | 1.9% |
| Claude | 6.6% | 0.0% | 0.6% |
| Google AI Overviews | 5.5% | 2.4% | 1.2% |
| ChatGPT (search) | 3.5% | 3.9% | 0.0% |
| Gemini | 0.0% | 0.8% | 0.0% |
Source: TOMIS ai.vis, all logged citations, May–September 2026.
Gemini cited Tripadvisor essentially never; Perplexity cited it in more than one citation in twelve. A review profile that carries weight in one assistant can be close to invisible in another. The same scans show how differently the assistants behave: when TOMIS ran the same question across three or more assistants, they disagreed about whether an operator should be mentioned at all 45.2% of the time. Being well reviewed in several places, with consistent details everywhere, is what makes you easier for every AI tool to trust.
Busted, with one honest caveat. Your replies are public text attached to your business, and there is good reason to think AI tools read them, though no platform publishes exactly how it weighs them. What is measurable is that response behaviour tracks closely with AI visibility: SOCi found locations with response rates below 5% were effectively excluded from AI recommendations. Replying is also one of the few things shown to improve the underlying reviews. A widely cited Harvard Business Review study of hotel reviews found that when businesses started responding, their average rating rose and they received more reviews overall. And response rates are low across the board: multi-location brands reply to 46.9% of Google reviews and only 3.1% of Yelp reviews (SOCi). Replying consistently is an easy way to stand out.
The best way to get more reviews is to automate your review requests by email and SMS, so every guest is asked at the right moment without anyone on your team having to remember. Most happy guests are willing to leave a review. They just forget, or nobody asks.
Tip: Once your email and SMS review requests are automated, every guest gets asked, every time. With Yonder Reviews, requests are triggered straight from your booking system (FareHarbor, Rezdy, Xola, Checkfront, Peek Pro and more), sent in your guest’s language, and backed by a smart survey that captures feedback. Operators using Yonder see 35 to 50% more 5-star reviews.
Respond to every review, quickly, in a natural way that restates what you offer and where. A good reply thanks the guest and quietly reinforces the details you want AI tools to connect with your business: your tour name, your location, and who the experience is for.
Weak reply: “Thanks so much! See you next time!”
AI-friendly reply: “Thank you, Sarah! We’re so glad your family loved the Sunset Dolphin Cruise in the Bay of Islands and that Jake made it fun for the kids. Spotting a pod at golden hour never gets old for us either. We hope to have you back on the water soon!”
The second reply confirms the tour name, the location, the family-friendly angle and the main highlight. That’s exactly what an AI needs to recommend you for “family dolphin tours in the Bay of Islands”.
AI-friendly reply: “Hi Tom, thanks for the honest feedback, and we’re sorry the pickup from your Queenstown hotel ran 20 minutes late. That’s not the start we want for anyone on our Milford Sound day tour. We’ve since added a second pickup vehicle in peak season. Please reach out to us directly so we can make this right.”
A calm, specific reply to a negative review shows travelers and AI tools that you fix problems. It also adds accurate context about your tour next to the complaint.
Replying well to every review takes time, and it’s usually the first job to slip in peak season. Yonder’s AI review responder drafts a personalized reply to each review in your brand voice, following the rules above: it thanks the guest, references the tour and location, and echoes what they loved. You review and post, so every guest gets a thoughtful response and your team gets hours back each week.
Yes, but indirectly. More reviews give ChatGPT more evidence to trust your business, but rating, recency and review content matter just as much as volume. Businesses ChatGPT recommends average 4.3 stars, and locations near 3.4 stars with low response rates are effectively excluded.
There is no fixed number. What matters is having more recent, detailed and positive reviews than the other operators in your area. A steady flow of new reviews every month is the goal.
Almost certainly. Replies are public text linked to your business, and response rates track closely with which locations AI tools recommend, though no platform publishes exactly how replies are weighed. Mentioning your tour name and location in replies adds useful context either way.
For tour and activity operators, Google Business Profile and Tripadvisor are the most important, and Gemini draws directly on Google Maps data. Yelp deserves more attention than most operators give it, accounting for 10.5% of AI citations on local queries in SOCi’s 2026 index. It also depends on which assistant you care about: TOMIS’s scans found Perplexity cited Tripadvisor in 8.3% of its citations, while Gemini cited it almost never.
Very few. Across 34,364 AI answers about tour and activity operators, TOMIS found the typical answer named two operators, three on average. Unlike a page of search results, there is no room further down.
Expect weeks to months, not days. AI tools refresh their sources at different speeds, so steady, consistent effort works better than a one-off push.
You can gently prompt guests, for example “feel free to mention your guide or your favorite moment”. Never script reviews or offer rewards for positive ones.
Reviews are how AI assistants decide whether to trust a tour operator enough to name them. More reviews help, but only when they are recent, detailed and positive, and when you reply to them. With the typical AI answer naming just two or three operators, that trust is the difference between being recommended and being invisible.
At Yonder, we help tour, activity and attraction operators put reviews on autopilot. Yonder Reviews automates review requests by email and SMS straight from your booking system, and our AI review responder drafts on-brand replies to every review, saving your team hours each week. Book a demo to see how Yonder can help you collect more reviews, respond faster and get found by the AI tools your guests are already using.