A guest is planning a weekend in Denver. A year ago they would have typed “boutique hotels in RiNo” into Google, scrolled a page of blue links, and clicked around. Today they open ChatGPT and ask a different kind of question:

“Where should I stay in Denver if I want a quiet, design-forward hotel near the arts district?”

And ChatGPT answers. Confidently. With a short list of hotels and a sentence or two about each one.

Here is the question that should keep you up at night: is your hotel on that list?

If the answer is “I don’t know” or “probably not,” you are not alone. Most hotels spent the last decade optimizing for Google, not for the AI assistants that have started to replace it. The rules changed, and nobody sent a memo.

Travelers aren’t searching anymore. They’re asking.

This isn’t a prediction. It is already happening. Travelers now begin their hotel research inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google’s own AI Overviews instead of typing keywords into a search bar.

The difference matters more than most hotel owners realize.

When someone typed into Google, they got a page of ten blue links, and your hotel could win by ranking. When someone asks ChatGPT, they don’t get a list. They get an answer, and that answer usually names three to five properties. Sometimes fewer.

You are not competing for a position on page one anymore. You are competing to be named.

And AI doesn’t rank websites the way Google does. It reads. It weighs what people say about you, how consistent your information is across the internet, and how trustworthy you look. If your hotel’s story is scattered or thin, the AI picks someone else.

What AI actually looks at

We hear this objection constantly: “I’ve spent thousands on SEO. My website ranks fine. Why would ChatGPT skip me?”

Because AI cares less about your keyword placement and more about whether the internet, as a whole, agrees on who you are.

A study published in Search Engine Journal analyzed more than 120,000 AI mentions across nearly 3,800 U.S. locations, spanning five AI models. The result was consistent: every model rewarded the same handful of signals, and none of them cared how big or dominant your brand was.

Those signals, in plain English:

1. Your reviews. Not just the star rating, but what guests actually write. AI models pull language straight from reviews to describe your property. If fifty guests have called your beds “the comfiest in Denver,” that phrase is now how an AI describes you.

2. Your Google Business Profile. Still the single most important piece of digital real estate a hotel owns. AI assistants lean on it for the basics: your name, address, hours, amenities, photos. If your profile is half-finished or still showing 2019 photos, you have handed AI an excuse to pick the hotel next door.

3. Consistency everywhere. Your name, address, and phone number need to match on your website, Google, TripAdvisor, the OTAs, and every directory that mentions you. When they don’t, AI treats you as an unreliable source. A missing suite number or an outdated phone number is enough to erode trust.

4. Structured data. The code behind your website. Done right, it tells AI exactly what you are: a hotel in this city, with these rooms, at this price. Most hotel websites skip it entirely, which is a bit like showing up to an interview without a resume.

5. Mentions and original content. AI favors hotels that appear in travel guides, local press, and genuine editorial coverage, and it favors websites that publish real, specific information instead of generic filler.

The five things to fix first

You don’t need to overhaul everything. Here is where the quick wins are:

1. Fix your Google Business Profile before anything else. Complete every field. Add current photos of the actual property. Choose your categories carefully. This alone moves the needle more than most “SEO packages” we have seen billed at four figures.

2. Actually respond to reviews. All of them, good and bad, with specifics. “Thanks for your feedback” tells AI nothing. “We’ve added blackout curtains to the rooms facing Larimer Street” gives AI something real to work with.

3. Audit your NAP. Search your hotel’s name and check every listing that comes up. Fix the mismatches. It is tedious, unglamorous work, and it is exactly the kind of thing AI notices.

4. Add structured data to your site. If this sounds technical, that is because it is, but it is a one-time fix that quietly feeds the machines everything they need to recommend you with confidence.

5. Start publishing real content. Answer the questions travelers actually ask about your neighborhood, your rooms, your city. Not “10 reasons to visit Denver.” The specific stuff only someone on the ground would know.

The honest bottom line

None of this is a silver bullet. AI search is still young, and the models change fast. But the hotels that get named in AI answers today share the same habits: clean information, strong reviews, and a story the whole internet tells the same way.

The good news is that none of this needs a bigger marketing budget. It needs attention to detail, and the willingness to stop optimizing for a search results page that is fading away.

At Razib Marketing, this is the work we do every day for independent and boutique hotels. If you would like to know whether ChatGPT currently recommends your property, we will run a free audit and show you exactly where you stand.