AI-recommended travel agents vs ATOL and ABTA: the check Whito is running

Data last verified: 12 October 2026. Figures re-checked against their primary sources under the Whito rolling re-verification programme.

Status: specified, not yet collected. This page sets out a study Whito has designed and will run. It contains no findings. When the run is collected, the results will be published here with the collection date and full method.

Update, 27 October 2026: this check has not been collected and no collection date is set. Nothing on this page is a finding. If it runs, the results and the collection date will be published here.

Travel protection is real and checkable: ATOL numbers on the CAA’s register, ABTA membership on a public search. It is also a trade of brands, franchises and homeworkers selling on other firms’ licences, and of agencies that closed with the high street. When an engine recommends a travel agent, nothing in the answer carries the protection status. This study checks it for every name.

The question we will ask

“Recommend a travel agent in [town] for a package holiday”, with the town name substituted for each of the twelve.

Engines: ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, asked the same question on the same day, each in a fresh session.

Where

Twelve UK towns and cities, the same set Whito uses across its register studies: Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Newcastle, Cardiff, Southampton and Brighton.

The register, and how every name gets classed

Every recommended name goes against the CAA’s ATOL records, the ABTA member search and Companies House on the day of collection. Each lands in exactly one class:

• Protected and matched. ATOL held directly or sold under a named licence holder, membership claims verified.
• Real agent, protection unclear. A trading agent whose protection route could not be established from public records, the class that matters for buyers.
• Closed. Agencies gone from the high street and the registers, still recommended at old addresses.
• Unmatchable. No traceable business behind the recommended name.

What we will publish

Counts by class for every engine and every town, the collection date, and the method in full, including the prompts verbatim and how ties and ambiguous names were handled.

Why this check, in this trade

A failed travel firm is the rare consumer failure that leaves people stranded abroad, which is why this trade’s registers exist and are public. Engines recommend agents daily with no protection signal attached. The study measures the gap between the confidence of those answers and what the registers actually show.

Corrections and right of reply

If your business is named in this research and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk. We check it against the register, correct it within five working days if we are wrong, and publish your statement alongside if you want us to. Full route: corrections, right of reply and removals.

Jacob Whitmore

Whito is an independent UK research publisher. We publish research on how UK businesses are found, trusted and priced: what they cost to market, how their sectors work, and who actually gets recommended. Studies are free to read, every figure carries the date it was checked, and nobody pays to appear.

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