India Travel AI Visibility Index 2026: IndiGo Ranks First

IndiGo is the Indian travel brand AI engines cite most, with a score of 87.4 out of 100 in Everything-PR's 2026 index of 25 Indian travel brands. Taj Hotels follows at 85.2 and Air India at 82.6. The index measures how often ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews name each brand on buyer-intent travel prompts. Airlines lead every sector, averaging 68.9.

By EPR Research. Originally published June 8, 2026. Updated October 19, 2026.

What does the India Travel AI Visibility Index measure?

The index measures visibility, not revenue or traveler preference. It scores which Indian travel brands AI engines surface when users ask commercial, informational, comparison and recommendation questions about travel, tourism and hospitality in India. The study covers 25 named brands across five engines, with a measurement window of May 1 to May 28, 2026. It is part of the Citation Share Index.

Each brand receives a composite score from 0 to 100 built from five weighted components: citation frequency (40%), cross-engine breadth (20%), query-type breadth (20%), extractability (15%) and crawl access (5%). EPR ran a frozen set of 60 buyer-intent prompts across four query types, without brand seeding, paid placement or manual correction. The scores are modeled and directional.

Which Indian travel brands rank highest?

IndiGo, Taj Hotels and Air India hold the top three positions in the 25-brand ranking, and Oberoi Hotels and MakeMyTrip complete the top five. The full ranking is below.

Which travel sector scores highest?

Airlines score highest, with an average of 68.9 across five carriers. Online travel agents average 59.8, hotels 58.6 and tourism boards 56.5. The sectors are different sizes, so the averages are a guide and not a precise comparison.

Four brands sit outside these sectors: IRCTC (74.1), Mahindra Holidays (56.4), Thomas Cook India (49.6) and Sterling Holiday Resorts (40.7).

What did the 2026 index find?

Eight findings stand out. Each one is read from the scores in the ranking above.

1. IndiGo leads at 87.4. The airline carried about 62% of India's domestic passengers in 2024, according to a DGCA data analysis by Live From A Lounge, and its single-lane identity as a low-cost carrier gives engines a clear answer to many travel prompts.
2. Taj Hotels and Air India, both Tata Group brands, average 83.9, well above any non-Tata hotel chain or airline. Vistara, once a Tata and Singapore Airlines joint venture, also scores 62.1.
3. State tourism boards outscore mid-tier hotel chains. Kerala Tourism (67.2), Rajasthan Tourism (60.5) and Goa Tourism (58.9) all rank above Lemon Tree (51.3) and the other chain hotels.
4. Online travel agents edge out hotels as a group, 59.8 against 58.6. MakeMyTrip (76.5) outscores every hotel brand except Taj and Oberoi.
5. IRCTC ranks sixth at 74.1, behind only IndiGo, Taj, Air India, Oberoi and MakeMyTrip. It outscores ITC Hotels, OYO and every other private travel brand below them.
6. Heritage hotels separate from chain hotels. Taj, Oberoi and ITC average 78.4, while Lemon Tree, Sarovar, Pride and Lalit average 43.8, a gap of 34.7 points.
7. Akasa Air scores 47.9. Launched in 2022, it outscores EaseMyTrip (46.3) and four hotel and resort brands: Sarovar, Pride, Sterling and Lalit.
8. The national Incredible India brand scores 39.4, below all three named state tourism boards.

Why does Vistara appear in a 2026 ranking?

Vistara appears because AI engines still return it for Indian airline prompts, even though the airline ceased operations on November 12, 2024 and merged into Air India, according to Wikipedia's Vistara entry. Its 62.1 shows how long a brand name keeps circulating in engine answers after it disappears. Readers who want the active carriers should read the airline sector average as covering four live brands plus a retired one.

What should Indian travel marketers take from the ranking?

• Pick one clear lane. IndiGo's top score came from a single, well-understood identity, while hotel chains and agents with broader positioning scored lower.
• Publish both the operating-brand and the holding-company entity. Taj and Air India score well inside the Tata Group umbrella, so brands in conglomerates should make both names clear in primary materials.
• Market the destination, not only the nation. Kerala, Rajasthan and Goa all outscored Incredible India, which suggests that specific destination stories reach engines better than national campaigns.
• Treat a merged or retired brand name as a source of citations to redirect, since engines keep naming it.

How was the index built, and what are its limits?

The index models answer-engine outputs on a frozen prompt set, so it can compare brands on the same questions in the same window. The normalization is simple: citation frequency is observed citations divided by the 300 citation slots per brand (60 prompts across five engines), cross-engine breadth is engines citing the brand divided by five, query-type breadth is query types where the brand appears divided by four, extractability is a 15-point schema and entity audit, and crawl access is the share of engines that can crawl the brand's site.

Scores are modeled by Everything-PR using public answer-engine outputs. They are directional, not exhaustive, and the brands named have not endorsed the report. Component scores are not published, so only the composite can be checked.

Sample prompts

1. Best Indian airlines 2026
2. Top luxury hotels in India
3. Best online travel agents in India
4. Compare IndiGo vs Air India vs SpiceJet
5. Best places to visit in India
6. Top heritage hotels in Rajasthan
7. Best Indian state tourism destinations
8. Largest hotel chains in India
9. Best way to book trains in India
10. Top luxury travel experiences in India

Related coverage

• The Citation Share Index: the full series.
• Hotels Citation Share Index 2026
• Airlines Citation Share Index 2026
• Hotel Marketing Strategy 2026
• Travel PR and the Everything-PR Research Index