How to Get Your Hotel Recommended in AI Search Results

RoomStay

Direct Bookings

April 10, 2026

8 mins read

Travellers are asking ChatGPT and Google AI for hotel recommendations. Here's how to make sure your property shows up. A practical guide for accommodation operators.

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A couple is planning a weekend away. They open ChatGPT and type: "best boutique hotel in the Hunter Valley with a pool and late checkout." A shortlist appears. Three properties. Yours isn't one of them.

They don't go looking for you. They book one of the three.

This is the new reality of travel search. Almost 30% of Australians now use AI to plan their holidays, with close to 10% specifically using it to find accommodation. That number is growing fast. And unlike Google, which hands a traveller ten links to sort through themselves, AI delivers one answer. A curated shortlist. A recommendation.

If your property isn't on it, you're invisible.

The good news is that getting your hotel recommended by AI isn't a mystery. It comes down to how well your website, your listings, and your online presence communicate who you are and what you offer. This post covers what AI search is, why it matters for accommodation operators, and the practical steps to improve your hotel website AI optimisation.

What's actually changed in how guests find you

Search used to be straightforward. A traveller typed 'hotels in Noosa', Google returned a page of links, and they clicked through to find what they were looking for. It was your job to rank well and your website's job to convert.

That model is shifting. AI-powered search tools, including Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, now generate direct answers to travel queries. Instead of showing links, they synthesise information from across the web and produce a recommendation.

The query isn't "hotels noosa" anymore. It's "I'm travelling to Noosa in April with two kids, we want to be close to Hastings Street, budget around $300 a night, pet-friendly if possible." And AI answers it.

This shift has a name in the industry: Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO. It’s the practice of making your website and online presence readable and trustworthy enough for AI systems to confidently recommend your property. For accommodation operators, it’s the newest layer of LLM hotel marketing, and it sits alongside SEO rather than replacing it.

How AI decides which hotels to recommend

AI doesn't browse your website the way a guest does. It scans, extracts, and cross-references information to build an understanding of what your property is, who it's for, and whether it can be trusted.

It pulls from multiple sources at once:

Your hotel website and its content
OTA listings on Booking.com, Expedia, and similar platforms
Your Google Business Profile
Review platforms like TripAdvisor and Google Reviews
Travel media, blogs, and destination guides
Online discussions on forums like Reddit and Quora

It then runs a kind of confidence check. Does the information stack up consistently across sources? Is the property described the same way everywhere? Are there strong, recent reviews that reinforce that description? If yes, AI recommends you with confidence.

If information is inconsistent, outdated, or simply missing, AI either skips your property or gets it wrong. That second scenario, where AI confidently describes your hotel incorrectly, is sometimes called the 'hallucination gap'. It happens when AI fills in the blanks with guesswork because it couldn't find reliable information.

The formula is simple: accuracy across sources, multiplied by how frequently your property is mentioned, equals visibility in AI search results.

Five things to fix on your hotel website right now

Most of this work isn't complicated. It's about making your website clearer and more structured, so AI can actually read what you're offering.

1. Write for specificity, not poetry

AI doesn't respond to atmosphere. It responds to facts.

Copy like "an unforgettable escape awaits" tells an AI system nothing. Copy like "heated outdoor pool, complimentary breakfast, 5-minute walk to the main beach, pet-friendly rooms available" tells it everything.

Go through your key website pages, especially your rooms, amenities, and about pages, and ask: if someone asked an AI 'does this hotel have [X]?', would our website give a clear, findable answer? If not, rewrite it.

2. Add FAQ content throughout your site

FAQ-format content is one of the most effective things you can do for hotel AI search visibility. AI tools are specifically designed to answer questions in natural language. When your website contains clear Q&A content, you're speaking the same language.

Don't limit FAQs to a single page. Add relevant questions to room pages, the booking page, and your 'about' section. Questions like:

Is this hotel pet-friendly?
Is there parking on-site?
What time is check-in and check-out?
Is breakfast included?
How far is the hotel from [local airport or landmark]?

These mirror exactly what travellers type into ChatGPT. Answer them directly and you give AI something easy to extract and cite.

3. Implement hotel schema markup

Getting your hotel website structured data right is one of the most direct ways to improve AI visibility. Schema markup is code added to your website that helps search engines and AI identify exactly what your property is. Hotel schema and LocalBusiness schema are the two most relevant types.

If your website developer hasn't set this up, it's worth asking about. Well-implemented schema tells AI: this is a hotel, this is its address, these are its facilities, this is how to book. It removes ambiguity, and that directly improves how confidently AI can recommend you.

4. Check that AI crawlers can access your site

AI search tools use their own web crawlers to gather information. OpenAI uses GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot. Google uses its own AI-specific crawlers alongside the standard Googlebot.

Some older website setups, or CMS platforms with default settings, accidentally block these crawlers in the robots.txt file. If that's the case, those AI tools simply can't read your site, regardless of how good your content is.

It's a quick technical check, and worth doing. Ask your web developer to confirm your robots.txt isn't blocking AI crawlers.

5. Add an llms.txt file

This one is newer, but growing quickly. An llms.txt file is a plain text document placed at your website's root domain that acts as a briefing document for AI systems. It tells AI crawlers what your property offers, how you'd like to be described, and which pages contain the most authoritative information.

Think of it as writing a summary of your property specifically for a robot. You control the narrative. You decide what goes in.

It's not yet a universal standard, but it's being adopted rapidly across the hospitality industry. Getting it in place now means you're ahead of the curve before it becomes expected.

Your off-site presence matters just as much

Your website is only one piece of the puzzle. Remember, AI cross-references multiple sources before making a recommendation. That means your Google Business Profile, OTA listings, and review platforms are all part of the picture.

A few things to check:

Your property name, address, and phone number are identical across every platform
Your amenities are listed consistently on your website and all OTA profiles
Your Google Business Profile is complete, with current photos, correct categories, and up-to-date details
You're actively collecting reviews on Google and TripAdvisor, and your volume and recency are strong

When AI sees the same information repeated accurately across multiple trusted sources, its confidence in recommending your property increases. When information conflicts, that confidence drops.

There's a whole conversation to be had about content strategy and off-page signals for AI search, and that's exactly what the next two posts in this series will cover.

The earlier you start, the better

AI search isn’t coming. It’s here. Google’s AI Mode is live. ChatGPT has 800 million weekly users, many of whom are already using it for AI search hotel booking research and trip planning. Perplexity has built hotel search directly into its platform.

Traditional search engine volume is predicted to drop 25% by 2026 as AI-generated answers take over more queries. Properties that wait will find themselves competing in a much smaller pool of traditional search traffic while losing ground in the AI space.

The good news is that most of the work is manageable. Structured content. Consistent listings. FAQ pages. Schema markup. These are all things you can act on now, without a big budget or a technical team.

And when a guest lands on your website after finding you through AI, the booking experience matters just as much as the visibility. A clean, fast, well-structured direct booking page isn’t just better for conversion. It also signals to AI that your site is the authoritative source for reservations, which improves your chances of being recommended in the first place.

Ready to turn more visitors into bookings?

AI visibility gets guests to your site. A well-built direct booking engine converts them once they’re there. See how RoomStay helps accommodation operators grow direct bookings and reduce OTA dependency.

Book a demo at RoomStay

Frequently asked questions

What is GEO for hotels?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. It's the practice of making your website content easy for AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity to read, trust, and recommend. Think of it as SEO, but for AI-generated answers rather than search rankings.

How does AI decide which hotels to recommend?

AI pulls from your website, OTA listings, Google Business Profile, review platforms, and third-party media. Properties with accurate, consistent, and detailed information across all those sources are far more likely to be cited.

How do I know if my hotel is appearing in AI search?

Test it yourself. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity: 'best hotels in [your city]' or 'hotels near [local landmark]'. If you're not appearing, that's your baseline. Specialist tools like Profound and Moz AI Visibility can track this at scale.

Does GEO replace SEO?

No. GEO works alongside your existing SEO. Many of the same signals, including structured content, consistent business listings, and quality backlinks, benefit both. The key shift is that AI rewards specific, factual, conversational content over keyword-heavy copy.

What is an llms.txt file?

An llms.txt file is a plain text document placed at your domain root that summarises your property for AI systems. It tells AI crawlers who you are, what you offer, and which pages have authoritative information. Adoption is growing rapidly, and it's worth adding now.

Will a better booking engine help with AI visibility?

A fast-loading, clearly structured booking page helps AI crawlers trust your site as an authoritative source. Pages buried behind complex JavaScript or that load slowly can reduce your chances of being cited. A clean, direct booking experience signals to AI that your website is where reservations happen.