AI Enigma: Search Traffic Drops to Sites, but Revenue Doesn’t—Yet

In the past year, Mexican hotel chain Tafer Hotels & Resorts has seen traffic to its website fall 25%. Despite that, Tafer’s revenue is up year over year, according to Max Gomez Montejo, chief digital marketing officer at the hotel chain.

Tafer isn’t alone. A growing number of companies say their websites are losing traffic, thanks to how artificial intelligence chatbots have changed the way people use online search. Yet many companies that, like Tafer, don’t sell ads on their websites also say the traffic decline hasn’t affected their business yet. Some say it may eventually suffer, and as a result they’re trying new marketing tactics to get attention from consumers. But for people like Gomez Montejo, the continued business strength despite the search decline highlights the uncertain value of website traffic.