15 Booking Enquiries From AI (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini): What Hotel Ranque Taught Us

This is the last post of my Hotel Ranque “Lab”.

It started as an AI visibility experiment: a fake hotel, a real website, a real methodology.

The goal was simple: can AI search drive direct bookings, not just “mentions”?

Answer: yes.

Since Nov 28, Hotel Ranque received 15 booking enquiries attributed to AI search.

And not just local demand: UK, New Zealand, Germany, and more.

1) The simplest signal is the most powerful

I added one question to the contact form to measure AI influence:

“How did you hear about us?”

Then a second: “Which AI specifically?”

And very quickly, replies started to look like this:

• AI Search
• ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini

Sometimes people even shared what they typed (e.g. “bike storage”).

It’s almost stupidly simple, but it changes everything.

Because you move from “Do AI bookings exist?” to who, when, why, how.

2) AI doesn’t only drive “niche” demand (even though niche works)

Yes, some enquiries are very specific.

Example: a group of cyclists asking for secure bike storage + multiple rooms.

But the surprising part: it’s not only that.

We also see very “mainstream”, persona-driven enquiries:

• Families (2 adults + 2 children, with ages)
• Clear constraints (dates, group size, needs)
• And often: planned far in advance

So AI isn’t just a “weird long-tail query machine”.

It’s a scenario matching engine.

3) SEO still matters… and AI serves SEO too

Among those enquiries, some came from Google Search.

That matters because it confirms something I keep seeing with Hotelrank.ai:

AI Search optimization serves SEO, and SEO serves AI Search!

• SEO creates the web’s “facts” (pages, consistency, clarity)
• AI consumes, cross-checks, recommends
• And the outcome can be a direct lead

This isn’t “AI vs SEO”.

It’s AI = SEO.

4) AI behaves like a discovery layer (and it’s early)

Another strong pattern: the timeline.

Many enquiries come with travel dates months ahead, sometimes close to a year.

That matches real-world usage:

AI is a discovery + shortlist layer.

It’s where travelers say:

“Give me 2 or 3 good options, not a list of 50 links.”

5) What any hotel can copy tomorrow

You don’t need to build a “Hotel Ranque” to learn from this.

Here’s the practical checklist:

1) Add attribution to your forms

• “How did you hear about us?”
• “AI / Google / OTA / referral”
• “If AI: which one?”
• “If AI: what did you type" => you can then track this prompt

2) Create pages that answer full scenarios

Not “rooms and amenities”. More like:

• family stays
• cyclists (bike storage, routes, services)
• accessibility
• business travel
• long stays

Short. Specific. Factual.

3) Make proof easy to retrieve

• amenities
• policies
• precise location details
• consistent information across the web
• structured data when possible

4) Measure over time

Models change. Sources change. Rankings shift.

Track it like SEO updates.

Final thought

Hotel Ranque started as a visibility experiment.

It ended as a booking experiment.

Takeaway: if AI can understand your hotel clearly, it can sell it for you, early in the traveler journey, long before they open Booking :)