TL;DR: New research shows that when AI-generated summaries appear in Google search results, click-through rates to websites drop by nearly 50%. That means fewer travelers are landing on your hotel’s website, even if you rank high. If your SEO strategy hasn’t been updated to reflect how people search in 2025, you could be losing direct bookings to Google itself without realizing it. Google Just Changed the Game – Quietly, But Drastically A July 2025 study from Pew Research confirmed what savvy marketers have been noticing for months: Google’s AI Overviews are making it harder for users to find and click on actual websites. These AI summaries, automated answer boxes shown at the top of search results, are increasingly becoming the final destination for travel-related queries. According to Pew’s findings: Click-through rates drop by almost 50% when an AI Overview appears Only 8% of users click on any link at all