Context
An original March 2026 audit of 156 paired Tokyo hotel prompts to Gemini 2.5 Flash with Google Search grounding classified 1,357 cited pages as OTA or non-OTA. Experiential queries produced a higher share of non-OTA citations than transactional queries (55.9% versus 30.8%).
What changed
The preprint supplies a documented, bilingual, intent-paired audit of intermediary source selection in one travel market. It reports a 25.1 percentage-point difference in non-OTA grounding citation share by prompt framing, while separately examining a small sample of hotel-owned site content.
Why it matters
AI citation exposure in intermediary-heavy categories can depend on whether a query seeks a bookable attribute or a traveler experience. Visibility measurement should segment by intent, language and source class, without equating a grounding citation to traffic or booking.
Visibility OS interpretation
Visibility OS interpretation: audit AI discovery funnels by transactional versus experiential intent and by direct versus intermediary source type. This study suggests a measurement distinction, not a proven content optimization intervention or an end to OTA dependence.
What remains uncertain
Does the intent-source pattern replicate outside Tokyo, across current Gemini versions and other AI search platforms? Would controlled hotel content interventions alter direct citations? Do source-citation differences translate to clicks, direct bookings or revenue?