NEW SEO + GEO Formula for Your Tour Business

Your Future Customers Aren’t Just Googling Anymore

Your ideal customers are still using Google, but they’re also turning to ChatGPT, Google Maps, and other AI-powered tools to plan their trips. If your tour company isn’t showing up in these results, you're already falling behind.

Watch our June 2025 webinar to discover how to rank across both traditional search engines and emerging AI platforms so you can drive more bookings than ever.

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar replay, you’ll learn how to future-proof your tour or activity business by improving your visibility in both search engines and AI-driven tools like ChatGPT and Gemini.

We’ll cover:

• How AI is changing travel search and how your tour business can show up in ChatGPT and other AI tools
• SEO for tour businesses that still work in 2025 and what you can stop wasting time on
• A new visibility formula that connects Google, Maps, directories, and AI to help you get more bookings
  

Meet the Experts

Brandon Lake

Brandon is the founder of Resmark Systems and WaiverSign, two industry-leading tools serving tour and activity companies worldwide. He also helps run Western River Expeditions and Moab Adventure Center, two of North America’s top tour operators. As a founding member of Trusted Adventures and Rafting America, Brandon brings deep industry experience and a passion for helping businesses grow. When he's not working, you’ll find him exploring the outdoors with his wife and four kids by raft, bike, or foot.

Nikki DeSantis

Nikki is the Marketing Director for Resmark’s family of brands, including Resmark Systems, ResmarkWeb, and WaiverSign. With a background in content strategy and social media, she leads marketing efforts that drive visibility and bookings for tour and activity operators. Nikki began her career as a travel blogger and social media entrepreneur. Today, she also works with multiple brands and companies in the tourism industry, guiding them through best practices in digital marketing, lead generation, and brand growth.

The New Era of SEO for Tour Operators: How to Win Visibility in an AI-Driven World

The landscape of SEO has fundamentally changed. If you're a tour operator still focusing solely on ranking on Google’s first page, you're missing the bigger picture. In a recent workshop led by Nikki DeSantis, Director of Marketing at Resmark Systems, and Brandon Lake, tourism industry veteran and founder of multiple adventure travel brands, the duo broke down the seismic shift happening in online discovery and what tour businesses must do to stay relevant, competitive, and booked.

Why SEO Isn’t Just About Google Anymore

“SEO is no longer about ranking #1 on Google. It’s about visibility across platforms where customers are actually searching,” said Nikki, setting the tone for the discussion. With the explosion of AI tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Gemini, consumer search habits are quickly evolving. Nikki shared a personal story of planning a Kilimanjaro trip where her research journey started not on Google, but in ChatGPT. She asked nuanced questions, compared tour operators, and narrowed down choices based on trust signals like social media presence and online reviews.

This is the new buying journey. And it’s being shaped by AI.

The Shift to Multi-Platform Discovery

Today’s travelers are discovery-driven, not just search-driven. That means your brand needs to show up not only in Google, but also in:

• AI Overviews (Google SGE)
• ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity
• Google Maps
• YouTube (for visual research)
• Instagram, Reddit, TikTok (for social proof and UGC)

Nikki described this broader strategy as Search Everywhere SEO, a term borrowed from top SEO influencers. Visibility now means being cited as a trusted brand across a web of platforms, not just one.

Real-Time Data Shows It Works

Brandon shared real traffic insights from their own adventure brands. For example:

• Traffic from AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity is growing exponentially, with 3 to 5 times more visits since January.
• Conversion rates from AI-referral traffic reached 3.3%, which is higher than many traditional channels.
• Some clients experienced 361% increases in traffic and 26 to 31% jumps in revenue by following this strategy.

This isn’t theory. It’s working.

What Makes Content AI-Optimized?

To earn visibility in AI platforms, content needs to be:

• Helpful: Focused on actual customer questions and needs
• Unique: Not generic AI regurgitation—human experience matters
• Trustworthy: Supported by reviews, testimonials, and real-world data
• Structured: Using FAQs, schema markup, and organized formatting for easy indexing

Tour operators should aim to become the cited source in AI responses by building out pages that educate and convert. These could include destination guides, detailed tour pages with multimedia, and high-intent blog posts that match conversational queries.

The Strategy in Action

Brandon walked through the design and SEO strategy behind Moab Adventure Center’s upcoming website. The site includes:

• Deep-dive informational pages like “Arches National Park Visitor Guide”
• Keyword-rich, visual tour listings with strong conversion design
• Embedded FAQs wrapped in schema markup
• Internal linking between blog, guide, and product pages

The goal is twofold. Earn visibility with AI and organic search, and maximize conversions once a visitor lands on the site.

A Quick SEO Checklist for Tour Operators

Nikki wrapped up with a practical roadmap:

• Audit your current website with tools like SEMrush, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console
• Identify high-intent keywords using tools like Ubersuggest or Ahrefs
• Refresh tour pages for mobile optimization, media, and conversion
• Create FAQ and blog content that answers common questions in detail
• Focus on presence across Google Maps, review sites, blogs, and YouTube
• Track traffic from AI tools using an AI source tracking report



The Bottom Line

“AI is not the future of SEO. It’s the present,” said Nikki. “If you’re not showing up in AI tools, your business is invisible to the new wave of travelers.”

Tour operators must embrace a Search Everywhere mindset. Optimize content to not only rank, but resonate. The companies that do will build trust faster, win more bookings, and future-proof their growth.