Part 1 of the series «AI visibility for hotels: the roadmap»
A guest types into ChatGPT: «Quiet boutique hotel in the Bernese Oberland with a good breakfast, around 220 francs per night.» Within seconds, three to five names appear. No scrolling, no comparison page, no ten blue links. Either your hotel is among these few names — or it simply does not appear. For you as a hotelier, this raises a new, very concrete question: do you actually know whether and how your property shows up in these answers?
Problem in everyday hotel business
Most hoteliers still have a rough sense of their position on Google — a look at booking figures or an occasional Google search for their own name is usually enough. With ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity, this sense is completely absent. No one has ever checked what these systems say about their own hotel — or whether they even know it. The result: many businesses keep investing in classic online marketing without knowing that they are simply invisible for a growing share of guest searches.
Current findings from research / occasion
A recent study by Nokumo Research evaluated 3'600 AI answers and 1'337 website audits from the hospitality industry. The results show how differently the individual AI systems handle hotel searches:
- Booking.com dominates AI answers: the platform appears in 95.3 percent of all tested queries — often noticeably more often than the hotel's own website.
- ChatGPT delivers the highest share of direct-booking recommendations (20.6 percent), but is also the most unpredictable system — results vary considerably from query to query.
- Gemini leans most heavily on OTAs: in almost 30 percent of cases, Gemini refers to a booking platform instead of the hotel website.
- Perplexity is the most consistent, but also recommends direct booking less often than ChatGPT.
- Faulty structured data leads to misinterpretations: in one documented case, a hotel was machine-readably classified as a retail business — with corresponding consequences for visibility.
- The language of the query changes the result: the same accommodation can be visible for a German-language query and remain invisible for the same question in another language.
A supplementary study on the AI visibility of Austrian hotels (89 businesses, analysed between April and May 2026) confirms this picture: many properties already invest in website, newsletter and campaigns — yet AI systems barely recognise them as a trustworthy source.
What does this mean for your hotel?
1. Google ranking and AI visibility are two separate issues
A hotel can rank on page one on Google and still be completely absent from ChatGPT. The two systems look for different signals: Google mainly evaluates the relevance and user experience of the website, while AI systems look for clear, structured facts from several sources at once.
2. You can check where you stand yourself — no tool required
Open ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity in private mode (so previous searches do not distort the result) and ask ten to twenty questions the way a guest would: «Best family hotel in [your region]», «quiet hotel in [town] with a wellness area under 200 francs». Note down for each question: Does your hotel appear? Is it described correctly? Which competitors show up instead? This simple test alone shows you where you stand within half an hour.
3. Your third-party sources matter more than you think
AI systems rely heavily on Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Google Maps and editorial mentions — not just on your own website. A complete, up-to-date profile on these platforms is therefore not a side issue, but one of the most effective single measures for AI visibility.
Concrete case study
Starting point: a 40-room family hotel in Valais had consistently invested in SEO in recent years and ranked on page one on Google for «Familienhotel Wallis». The business assumed it was well positioned digitally.
Action: the managing director carried out the self-test described above with fifteen typical guest questions in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. Result: for eleven of fifteen questions, the hotel did not appear; for two more, outdated room prices were quoted. Instead, all three systems consistently recommended two competitors from the region who, although smaller, had a complete, up-to-date Google Business Profile and numerous recent reviews with photos.
Expectation: with this concrete finding, the hotel was able to set clear priorities: keep current prices and features up to date on Google Business Profile and Booking.com, actively collect reviews, and expand its own website with clear, fact-based answers to typical guest questions. A repeat test after eight weeks is intended to show whether visibility has improved.
Common mistakes
- Testing only your own hotel name. If you only check whether the AI knows the name, you learn nothing about whether the hotel is recommended for real guest questions. What matters is testing with need-based queries, not with the hotel's own name.
- Running the test only once. AI answers change with every model update. A one-off check shows a snapshot, not a reliable state.
- Relying exclusively on your own website. If you only optimise the website but neglect Booking, Google and review profiles, you are only addressing part of the problem — and remain largely invisible to AI systems regardless.
Conclusion
For years, Google ranking was the benchmark for digital visibility in hotel marketing. Today, this benchmark is no longer sufficient. If you want to know how present your hotel is among guests who use AI systems for their search, you need to look there yourself — with a simple but honest test. The good news: this first step costs nothing but a little time, and it immediately shows where action is needed. In the next part of this series, we look at what needs to happen behind the scenes on your website so that AI systems can even read your information correctly.
Sources
- Nokumo Research: «KI-Sichtbarkeit im Gastgewerbe: Was 3.600 KI-Antworten und 1.337 Website-Audits zeigen» (2026)
- Nokumo Research: «Wie empfiehlt KI Hotels? 450 Anfragen, 4 Modelle, 5 Länder» (2026)
- hotelimpulse.at: «Österreichische Hotels sind auf KI-Sichtbarkeit kaum vorbereitet» (2026), study of 89 Austrian hotels
Further articles on this topic
- Why a «beautiful website» is not enough (Part 2 of the series — directly following on)
- Why ChatGPT recommends your hotel — FAQ page (concrete measure)
- Google Business Profile 2026 (concrete measure)
- 76% of the Swiss population use ChatGPT & Co. (context/relevance)
- Content clusters instead of single articles (deep dive into GEO structure)
