Will ChatGPT recommend my business to tourists from Singapore, China or Indonesia?

Yes, ChatGPT can recommend your business to tourists from Singapore, China or Indonesia, but in our test it named the same few places for all three. A visitor's country changed the language, the currency and sometimes the halal advice. It barely changed the shortlist.

So the question for a Penang seafood restaurant, a KL massage shop or a souvenir seller isn't "which country do I target?" It's whether ChatGPT can find your facts at all.

Which businesses does ChatGPT recommend to tourists from Singapore, China or Indonesia?

ChatGPT recommended a small, repeated set of businesses to tourists in our test, and where it got their details depended on the trade. We asked three visitor questions, twice each, from each country. One seafood restaurant appeared in all six seafood answers. Two massage chains appeared in all six massage answers. A chocolate brand and a craft market appeared in all six souvenir answers.

Independent restaurants got named without a website of their own being cited. Penang Global Tourism's street food guide and directory did that job. For locals asking the same kind of food question, our nasi lemak test found food blogs and ranking sites doing it instead.

Does ChatGPT give tourists from Singapore, China and Indonesia different answers?

ChatGPT changed how it talked to each tourist more than whom it recommended. It answered in English, Chinese or Indonesian to match the question. Chinese answers converted prices into yuan more often than not. When we asked the Penang seafood question from Malaysia as a check, the top two restaurants were ones visitors were also given.

The differences were in the extras:

• Indonesia: three of six answers raised halal status, though no question mentioned it. One swapped in grilled-fish restaurants from Penang's Muslim travel guide.
• China: both souvenir answers listed foods not to carry into China, and one seafood answer gave tips on which review sites to trust.
• Singapore: answers compared prices and dishes with home ("you can already get excellent chilli crab"), and both souvenir answers said to check Singapore's food import rules.

Every web search ChatGPT ran was in English, including the searches behind the Chinese and Indonesian answers. That matches our language test: your English page is the one it looks for.

Does ChatGPT send tourists to TripAdvisor, Klook, Trip.com or Xiaohongshu?

ChatGPT didn't cite TripAdvisor, Klook, Trip.com, Xiaohongshu or Google Maps in any of the 18 visitor answers. TripAdvisor pages turned up in its search results for five answers, and Trip.com for four, but it cited other pages.

Instead it cited the state tourism guide, businesses' own sites, travel blogs and media, listing sites like Wanderlog, and Reddit threads. One Chinese answer did mention Xiaohongshu by name, to warn: "不要只看小红书推荐" ("don't rely only on Xiaohongshu"). It suggested reading Google Maps reviews instead.

Our reading: a strong travel-platform profile still helps tourists who search there. It just wasn't what ChatGPT quoted.

What facts does ChatGPT repeat to tourists about a Malaysian business?

ChatGPT repeated the facts a visitor needs to show up: where you are, when you're open, and what it costs. Each came from a page it could read:

1. Area and address, in nearly every answer.
2. Opening hours and closed day for four of six seafood answers, taken from the state guide's listings. Answers often told visitors to check hours before travelling far.
3. Prices in ringgit from the massage chains' own price lists, in all six massage answers.
4. Halal status, raised only for Indonesian visitors, usually as "confirm before you go".

What staff speak never came up. None of the 20 answers said which languages a business's staff speak, even for visitors writing in Chinese or Indonesian.

This is the mirror image of our cross-border shopping test, where shoppers abroad were often linked to local shops and marketplaces rather than the Malaysian brand.

What can't this test tell me about ChatGPT and tourists?

• How common this is. It's 20 answers on one day, three question types, through OpenAI's API rather than the ChatGPT app. The app can show maps and place cards and uses chat history.
• Language versus country. Each country asked in its own language, and every question named where the visitor was from, so we can't separate the two.
• Other trades and towns. Hotels, tours and places outside Penang and KL weren't tested.

How do I get ChatGPT to recommend my business to tourists?

Put the facts a visitor checks on pages ChatGPT already reads, in English.

1. Request EasyFound's free check. See what ChatGPT says when a visitor asks something like "Taking my family to Melaka from Singapore. Any good family restaurants you'd recommend?" Then go through it with us on a free call.
2. Get into your state tourism body's guides and directory. In our test, every Penang seafood answer cited Penang's state guides, and the opening hours and closed days it gave came from them.
3. Publish your price list as text, in ringgit, on a page of your own. The massage chains whose menus ChatGPT could read had their prices quoted.
4. Write your area, opening hours, closed day and halal status in plain English, the same way everywhere they appear.
5. Say which languages your staff speak, such as Mandarin, Malay or English. No answer in our test could tell a visitor this.

EasyFound is an AI SEO service for Malaysian businesses. We check what six AI tools say in English, Malay and Chinese, and put your facts where they look. Start with the free check below.