Public observatory
Ask an AI where to go in Italy. Five names come out.
Not fifty links to compare: five names, already chosen. We measure which territories make the list, which hotels make the list, and where the AI got its information.
ChatGPT
Gemini
Perplexity- destinations
- 100
- tracked hotels
- 2,000
- prompts per destination
- 50
- answers analysed
- 75,000
- First measurement: August 2026
Three assistants queried every month, five times per question. Every number is an average, with how much it moved shown next to it.
What it measures
Four things that together make a mark out of 100. Each answers a question a tourism board or a hotelier actually asks.
How often it's recommended
Picture someone asking an AI “where should I go to the seaside in Italy”. This number says how often this territory shows up in the answer, and in which position.
worth 35 of 100
How well they know it
If someone asks “what is there to see here”, can the AI name real places, or does it stop at the two everybody knows? This measures how well it knows the place.
worth 25 of 100
Who talks about it
Where the AI gets its information when it talks about this territory. If it takes it from Booking rather than the official site, the destination is being described by someone who profits from it.
worth 20 of 100
Whether they can read it
Can the programs that read websites on behalf of AI get in, or do they find the door shut? An AI cannot recommend what it was never allowed to read.
worth 20 of 100
Italy in one number
The average across the hundred territories we follow, and how differently the three assistants see it.
How it's built
No number comes from a hunch. This is the path every value takes before it reaches the page.
- 01
The questions
Fifty questions per territory, in the two languages Italy gets searched in. Half put the territory in a race with the others in its category, half only check whether the AI knows it.
- 02
The measurements
Every question is asked five times a month to each assistant. The same question gives different answers: one query isn't data, it's an anecdote.
- 03
The websites
For every territory we look at who tells its story and whether AI programs can read them. An AI won't recommend what it was never allowed to read.
- 04
The number
The four factors, weighted, make the score. We publish the average with its spread and the band, because between 38th and 41st place there is no measurable difference.
Before you read a number
AI Visibility Score
A 0 to 100 mark for how often an AI names this territory when someone asks where to go. A hundred means it always comes up, first. Zero means that for the AI it doesn't exist.
Band
Bands group territories that genuinely match each other. There's no measurable difference between #38 and #41; between one band and the next there is.
The three measurements
Every month we ask the same questions five times to each assistant. The answers change, so we publish the average and how much they moved.
The five comparison categories
Twenty territories per category. Comparing only means something between comparable things: a village of eight hundred people isn't competing with Rome.
Seaside tourism
Coasts, islands and rivieras. The most crowded part of Italian tourism, and the one where AI has the most names to choose from: getting in is harder here than anywhere else.
Mountains and natural parks
Alps, Apennines and national parks. Two seasons instead of one, and a race dominated by a handful of very strong names the AI keeps repeating.
Food and wine tourism
Wine and food territories. Few people search for them, but those who do have all but decided to go: a mention is worth more here than elsewhere.
UNESCO heritage tourism
Italy's sixty World Heritage sites. The category where AI is most confident, and also the one where it gets things wrong least often.
Italy's most beautiful villages
Small towns with few beds. This is where being named by an AI genuinely changes the month's takings: a few more people is all it takes.
Where to start
Three doors, depending on what you're after.
I have a place in mind
Go to its page: score, band, what the AI knows about it, who tells its story, and the twenty hotels we follow there.
Find it on the mapI want the ranking
A hundred territories in order, filterable by assistant. Or one category at a time, which is the comparison that means something.
Open the rankingI want to look at hotels
Two thousand properties across a hundred territories, with a national ranking and one per territory. The second is the comparison that counts.
Open the hotelsI want the method
The formula, the weights, how many measurements, and the seven things we take for granted before measuring anything.
Read the methodFrequently asked questions
The things people ask before they even look at a number.
What is AI visibility for a travel destination?
It is how often a conversational assistant names that territory when someone asks it where to go, and in which position. Unlike a traditional search, which hands back fifty links to choose from, an AI hands back five names already chosen: either you are in there, or you do not exist.
Which assistants does the observatory measure?
Three: ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. Each assistant gets its own score alongside the overall one, which is the plain average of the three. No hidden weighting between assistants: if ChatGPT counted more than Perplexity that would be our opinion dressed up as a measurement.
How is the 0-100 score calculated?
From four weighted factors: comparative presence (how often the territory shows up when it competes with others in its category), internal depth (how much the AI actually knows about the place), cited sources (where it takes its information from) and technical accessibility (whether AI crawlers can read the territory's websites). The formula and the weights are public.
Why five measurements a month instead of one?
The same question asked twice of the same model gives two different answers. One question is not data, it is an anecdote. Every month we repeat everything five times per assistant and publish the mean together with how much it moved.
What does the ± next to the score mean?
It says how much the answer changed between one run and the next within the same month. The smaller it is, the more reliable the score. It is also why we publish a band rather than just a position: between 38th and 41st place there is no measurable difference.
Why does it matter whether a destination's website lets crawlers in?
An AI does not recommend what it could not read. Each assistant sends its crawlers out to read websites: if a territory blocks ChatGPT's, its ChatGPT score drops. This is not technical hygiene, it is visibility.
Is the observatory data open?
Yes. No paywall and no sign-up: the rankings are on the page and the same data is downloadable as JSON from the public APIs. The method is stated in full, so anyone can challenge a number knowing how it was produced.
Are the numbers published right now real measurements?
Not yet. At this stage the values are generated for demonstration, to build and show the tool, and we say so on every page. They should not be cited as findings. When the real runs begin the banner disappears and the numbers become measured.
Open data
The same numbers you see on the pages, in JSON, no sign-up and no key. If you use them, cite the source.
| Open data | Destination |
|---|---|
| /api/destinations.json | The hundred destinations |
| /api/categories.json | The five categories |
| /api/queries.json | What travellers ask |
| /api/hotels.json | The twenty hotels we follow here |
| /llms.txt | Data status |
The observatory is public and stays public
No paywall, no gated access, method declared. If something about a place you know is wrong, write to us.