Visit Irving Builds an AI-Ready Roadmap for Destination Discovery

Visit Irving operates in one of the most competitive destination markets in Texas. Located between Dallas and Forth Worth, the destination benefits from the international visibility of the wider region, but competes with its better-known anchor cities for leisure travelers, meeting planners, and convention business with a smaller staff and a more limited budget.

As travel discovery shifts toward AI driven search experiences, Visit Irving needed to understand how effectively its destination content could compete. Travelers increasingly rely on AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews to research trips, venues, and destinations. Visit Irving sought a clear view of how its website performed in this environment and where focused improvements could deliver the most value and strengthen its competitive position.

To gain that clarity, Visit Irving partnered with MediaOne to complete an AI Brand Visibility Audit. The audit aimed to assess how Irving appears across emerging AI discovery platforms while protecting the organic visibility the destination already depends on.

The Challenge of AI Driven Travel Discovery

Visit Irving manages a large and complex website with a lean internal team. Like many destination organizations, the site serves multiple audiences, including leisure travelers, meeting planners, and convention business. At the time of the audit, Visit Irving experienced year-over-year declines in organic traffic, a trend affecting many destination websites as search behavior evolves.

AI-driven traffic was beginning to appear, but it represented a small and difficult to measure portion of overall performance. At the same time, competition from nearby destinations with larger teams and budgets meant Visit Irving needed to make smart, strategic decisions that delivered big impact.

The team needed clear answers to several practical questions:

• How visible is Irving when travelers use AI tools to research destinations?

• Is existing content structured in a way that AI systems can understand and reference?

• Where should a small team focus first to improve visibility without attempting a full site overhaul?

Visit Irving needed a clear assessment and a realistic, data-driven roadmap.

How MediaOne Conducted the AI Brand Visibility Audit

MediaOne approached the engagement with a comprehensive audit designed to evaluate both traditional organic performance and emerging AI discovery signals.

The process began with a review of Google Analytics and Google Search Console data to establish a performance baseline. MediaOne then conducted prompt-based monitoring across leading large language models to evaluate how often Irving appeared, which content AI systems referenced, and where visibility gaps existed.

In parallel, MediaOne completed a technical and structural review of the website. This included evaluating header hierarchy, navigation structure, schema and structured data, metadata, and content readability. The objective was to assess how clearly the site communicates meaning and authority to both users and AI systems that rely on structure and context to generate responses.

The audit delivered a holistic view of how Visit Irving appears across the modern travel discovery journey.

As the work progressed, the Visit Irving team gained clarity on how emerging AI platforms interpret its content and where small structural improvements could deliver meaningful gains. “The audit helped the team focus on the opportunities that matter most as travel discovery continues to change,” said Monty White, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Visit Irving.

AI Visibility Strategy and Key Insights

After completing the initial audit, MediaOne developed an AI visibility strategy around continuity and prioritization, rather than treating AI as a standalone initiative.

Based on the reality that organic search remains the primary traffic driver for destination websites, MediaOne’s strategy focused on protecting that foundation while ensuring content is structured to support AI visibility over time.

Improving Structure Before Increasing Content Volume

To do this, the team outlined a plan to improve content structure on the website as a whole. Focusing on technical improvements identified in the audit, such as navigation elements the website rendered as page headers, allowed the team to resolve issues that limited how search engines and AI systems accessed content. Addressing these issues delivered meaningful impact without requiring large-scale content rewrites, and set the stage for success as the team increased content volume in the future.

Developing Authoritative Cornerstone Content

To kick-start the content development phase, MediaOne recommended creating a centralized, Wikipedia-style destination guide with integrated FAQs. This approach consolidates essential destination information into a single, well-structured resource that aligns with how AI systems surface answers and citations.

The second phase of the content plan focused on prioritizing deep content development on website pages that captured high impressions but delivered low engagement. This allowed the MediaOne team to help Visit Irving focus their limited resources in high-impact areas, rather than trying to update hundreds of pages. The end result was a roadmap that helped Visit Irving and MediaOne work efficiently to develop deep content pages that delivered new content tied to common traveler questions.

An Evolving AI Readiness Strategy

The AI Brand Visibility Audit provided the team with a clear, prioritized roadmap to navigate AI-driven destination discovery that evolves based on ongoing monitoring and strategic iteration.

The engagement delivered:

• A baseline view of Irving’s visibility across major AI platforms

• Clear identification of technical and structural barriers affecting discoverability

• A focused content strategy centered on authoritative, high-impact resources

• A practical framework for improving AI visibility while maintaining organic performance

With a shared understanding of where to focus first and why it matters, Visit Irving is positioned to move forward with confidence as travel discovery continues to evolve.