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Hilton Head tourism bureau reports a modest Q3 dip, shifts strategy to work with AI and search engines
Summary
The Hilton Head Island‑Bluffton Chamber’s visitor bureau reported a small decline in traditional web metrics for January–March but said April–May bookings are recovering; staff said shifts in Google search results and AI are changing how destination marketing is measured.
Ariana Pernice, vice president of the Visitor and Convention Bureau at the Hilton Head Island‑Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, presented the destination’s fiscal 2024–25 third‑quarter recap (January–March) to Town Council on June 3 and defended plans to adjust tactics after two quarters of declining traditional website metrics.
Pernice highlighted an "America's Favorite Escape" campaign that used new platforms (Spotify, Disney+) and produced positive partner referrals. She said the bureau’s international outreach included work in Germany with state and regional partners and noted strong editorial placements in outlets such as Southern Living and Good Morning America.
Council concerns and staff response Councilmembers noted consecutive quarterly declines in users, visits and sessions. Councilwoman Tunner said the metrics reflected an 18–19% drop in users and asked what tactical changes the bureau is pursuing. Pernice and digital staff said the search landscape shifted as Google increasingly surfaces an AI‑generated summary at the top of search results, reducing clickthroughs to destination websites.
Chase (destination marketing staff) explained the change: "The problem is the first third of the page, whenever you Google anything now, is Google's AI summary of everything. So that eats up a lot of traffic." Staff said the bureau is working to make Hilton Head the authoritative source for AI and to measure two new backend metrics: how often AIs crawl the site and how many referrals come from AI services (for example, ChatGPT or Gemini referrals to partner websites).
Other operational details Staff reported that booking windows have shortened to roughly a three‑week window and that home and villa bookings were tracking at or above 2024 levels for April and May. The bureau said social audience size was up 1.8% year over year despite lower sessions in the January–March quarter, and that the 55–64 age group remains the largest website audience with signs of growth in the 45–54 bracket.
Requested follow‑up Council members asked staff to provide additional breakdowns (for example, booking‑window separation for hotels vs. homes and villas, busiest check‑in days, and more robust tracking of international arrivals using airport data), and staff agreed to supply that information.
Provenance: Pernice’s presentation began about 00:28:45 in the transcript and the detailed Q&A (including Chase’s explanation of AI impacts and booking‑window comments) is concentrated between 00:36:51 and 00:45:30.
Ending: The bureau said it will continue to monitor AI and search changes, add measurement of AI crawling and referrals, and provide more granular booking and referral metrics to council on request.
