The Future of Hotel Discovery: Will AI Recommend Your Hotel?

For years, much of hotel marketing has been built around one fundamental objective: making sure the guest can find us. We have worked with SEO, Google, OTAs, paid media and distribution, all with the aim of being visible at the moment someone starts looking for a hotel.

But what happens when that search starts to look different?

Increasingly, travel inspiration and planning are becoming more conversational. Instead of opening Google and typing “hotels in Marbella”, a traveller can describe what they actually want:

“Find me a smaller hotel close to the sea, with really good food, a relaxed atmosphere and somewhere to play golf nearby.”

For hotels, I think this is an interesting shift. The question is no longer only whether the guest can find us, but whether our hotel is represented clearly enough digitally for AI to understand what we are, who we are right for and when we should be recommended.

FROM SEARCH TO RECOMMENDATION

I noticed this change in my own behaviour during our road trip through Italy this summer. I used AI for a surprisingly large part of the planning, from exploring destinations and finding hotels to working out how we should structure the journey by car. A few years ago, I would probably have done much more of that research through Google.

Of course, this doesn't mean that Google, OTAs or traditional search are going away. They will continue to be hugely important to hotel discovery and distribution. What I find interesting is that another layer is being added, one where travellers don't necessarily have to know exactly what or where they are searching for before they begin.

A Google search for “hotel Tuscany” tells us very little about the person behind it. A conversation can reveal something much more specific: perhaps they are looking for a family-owned hotel in the countryside, with a pool, excellent food and authentic character, where they can spend three nights while exploring local vineyards.

That is a much richer expression of guest intent, and the more specific that intent becomes, the more important it is that the hotel's digital presence makes it clear why the property is relevant.

THE OLD POSITIONING QUESTION BECOMES EVEN MORE IMPORTANT

This brings us back to the good old positioning question, which I believe becomes even more important in an AI-driven discovery environment:

“What are we really good at? For whom? And why should the guest choose us?”

Take two hotels that both describe themselves as a “luxury hotel in Marbella.” One might be a lively resort built around restaurants, nightlife and a social atmosphere, while the other could be a small, quiet property surrounded by nature where guests come to disconnect.

Both descriptions may be perfectly accurate, but the reasons for choosing them are completely different.

If those differences are clearly reflected across the hotel's digital presence, it becomes easier for a potential guest to understand the proposition. Increasingly, I think it will also make it easier for AI-powered services to understand when one hotel is a more relevant recommendation than another.

So for me, AI doesn't change the fundamentals of positioning. If anything, it makes clarity more valuable.

AI VISIBILITY IS BIGGER THAN THE HOTEL WEBSITE

This is also why I would be careful about treating AI Visibility as simply another website optimisation exercise.

A hotel's digital identity doesn't exist in one place. Of course the website matters, but the wider picture can also include distribution platforms, destination websites, reviews, structured information, media coverage and other credible sources that describe the property.

Together, these create a much broader digital representation of the hotel.

That raises a question I think is worth asking: does the story we want to tell about our hotel match the story that exists about us across the wider digital ecosystem?

A hotel may have spent years refining its positioning and brand story, but if the distinctive parts of that proposition are difficult to find, inconsistently described or barely mentioned outside its own website, the challenge may not simply be visibility. It may be clarity and consistency.

FROM KEYWORDS TO GUEST INTENT

From a commercial perspective, this is perhaps the part I find most interesting.

We have traditionally organised much of hotel digital marketing around markets, channels, search terms and keywords. Conversational discovery allows the guest to start somewhere else entirely: with the experience they want.

They may not know the hotel name. They may not know the brand. They may not even have decided on the exact destination.

They might simply be looking for a romantic spa weekend within an hour of Stockholm, a family-friendly resort in southern Spain with great food and golf nearby, or a small countryside hotel in Tuscany where they can have dinner every evening without leaving the property.

For a hotel, these are interesting scenarios because they force us to look beyond what we sell and think about when we should be relevant.

A hotel can have beautiful rooms, an excellent restaurant, a spa and a great location, but does its digital presence bring those elements together into a sufficiently clear proposition for someone — or something — to understand why this particular hotel fits that particular guest?

FIVE QUESTIONS I THINK HOTELS SHOULD START ASKING

Before turning AI Visibility into something unnecessarily technical, I would start with the fundamentals:

1. Is our positioning clear enough to describe in one sentence?

2. Is it obvious who the hotel is particularly relevant for?

3. Does our digital content explain the experiences and reasons to stay, rather than simply listing rooms and facilities?

4. Is the same basic story about the hotel reflected across our wider digital ecosystem?

5. When we test realistic guest questions in AI services, does our hotel appear — and if it does, how is it described?

The last one is particularly interesting because any hotel can start testing it today.

Don't ask AI about your hotel by name. Instead, think about the questions your ideal guests might genuinely ask when they are planning a trip and see what happens.

Which hotels are recommended? How are they described? Which attributes seem to make them relevant? Does your hotel appear, and does the description actually reflect what you believe makes it special?

And if another hotel is recommended instead, that is perhaps the most interesting question of all: why might that hotel have appeared more relevant to the request?

I wouldn't treat the answers as a definitive measurement of AI Visibility. Results can vary between services, prompts and users, and this entire ecosystem is developing quickly. But I do think it is a very useful exercise for starting a different kind of commercial conversation.

POSITIONING, DATA AND DISTRIBUTION ARE MOVING CLOSER TOGETHER

For me, this may be one of the more important consequences of the shift.

Positioning has traditionally sat largely with brand and marketing, while data and distribution have often been treated as separate disciplines. But when technology increasingly helps interpret what a traveller wants and narrow down which hotels might be relevant, those areas naturally start moving closer together.

The hotel needs a clear proposition, that proposition needs to be accurately represented through content and information, and that information needs to be available across the ecosystem where discovery and distribution take place.

Positioning → Data → Distribution → Discovery

I don't think these can be completely separate conversations anymore.

FROM BEING FOUND TO BEING RECOMMENDED

We are still early in this development, and I would be cautious about anyone claiming to know exactly how hotels should “optimise for AI”. The technology is developing quickly, as are the platforms, sources and behaviours around it.

Nor do I think this is a story about AI replacing Google, OTAs or SEO. It is more interesting than that. It is about another way of discovering hotels developing alongside the channels we already have.

Hotels have spent years becoming better at being found. I think the next commercial question will increasingly be whether we are also understood well enough to be recommended.

That is why I believe AI Visibility will become as natural a part of hotels' digital strategy as SEO is today.

And perhaps the best place to start isn't with AI at all. It is with that old positioning question:

“What are we really good at, for whom — and why should the guest choose us?”

TRY IT YOURSELF

Ask an AI assistant to recommend a hotel in your destination based on the needs and preferences of your ideal guest — without mentioning your hotel by name.

Does your hotel appear? How is it described? And if it isn't recommended, what might that tell you about how clearly your hotel is represented digitally?