AI citation study analyzes Austrian tourism digital sources

A long-term study by consultant Manuela Machner and KiNET. ai has analyzed how leading AI systems select sources for tourism-related queries in Austria. Between April and August 2026, the study evaluated 1.14 million source references generated from 154 predefined German-language guest questions.

The research compared systems including ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude. The findings reveal a highly fragmented digital source market; no single platform dominates, with the most frequent provider accounting for only 3.7 percent of references in August.

Regarding accommodation queries, 37.6 percent of citations came from booking portals, while 28.7 percent originated from direct business websites. Interestingly, traditional room and pricing pages are cited less frequently than landing pages, regional descriptions, or Google Business Profiles. The study also noted technical differences between systems: while some AI applications frequently reference English-language websites even for German queries, Google-based systems rely more heavily on social media content.