How AI Recommends Hotels
Original research into AI search behavior. We run thousands of queries, analyze millions of citations, and publish what we find — so hotels can understand the new landscape.
AI Hotel Landscape 2026
1.2M+ citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity & Grok
The definitive analysis of how AI assistants recommend hotels. Which sources do they trust? Which hotels win visibility?
Completed Studies
Hotel llms.txt Adoption Study 2026
Only 6.3% of hotels have adopted llms.txt — and 7.3% misuse it
We scanned 105,002 hotel websites for llms.txt files. Only 6.3% have one. The US leads at 12.4%, France trails at 3.8%. WordPress plugins drive 33% of adoption.
Hotel robots.txt & AI Blocking Study
96.7% of hotels have zero AI-specific blocking rules
We parsed 105,002 hotel robots.txt files. Only 3.3% block any AI crawler. France leads at 7.5%. GPTBot is most blocked at 2.9%. 2.1% use the "smart" strategy: block training, allow search.
Hotel Naming Study 2026
121,425 hotel names across 7 countries — what patterns emerge?
287 Hotel Europa/Europe variants, generic name collisions that break ChatGPT's entity recognition, chain vs. independent branding, and why your hotel name is now AI infrastructure.
Hotel Schema.org Adoption Study
Do hotels actually use structured data?
We scanned 121,425 hotel homepages across 7 countries. 36.3% have no structured data. 41% use the wrong type. Only 10.6% have a good implementation.
Anatomy of ChatGPT Hotel Search
What actually happens when someone asks ChatGPT for a hotel
Technical teardown of the 12 systems behind ChatGPT hotel recommendations: entity linking, fan-out engines, provider ecosystem, RRF fusion, and the Google lawsuit threatening it all.
Google AI Mode Hotel Study 2026
Where do hotel clicks actually go?
4,000 queries reveal: 79% of hotel clicks stay within Google via Business Profiles. OTAs get cited but not clicked.
AI Hotel Rankings Are Not Random
SparkToro found <1% consistency — we found 50.5% for hotels
Replicating SparkToro's AI consistency research for hotel queries. Result: 50.5% position stability (vs <1% for brands). Hotels are different because of geographic constraints and finite supply.
Yelp in ChatGPT: Hotel Data Study
33% of queries now pull Yelp data — but only in 5 cities
Public documentation of ChatGPT's Yelp integration for hotels. Starting Jan 22, 2026, Yelp appears in 33% of hotel queries — but only for US cities (Las Vegas 40%, LA 38%, SF 33%) and Berlin. Zero coverage for European resorts.
AI Hotel Landscape 2026
1.2M+ citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity & Grok
The definitive analysis of how AI assistants recommend hotels. Which sources do they trust? Which hotels win visibility?
French Hotel Blog Study 2026
49% have a blog — only 1 in 4 is active
Analysis of 15,155 French hotels reveals an untapped content opportunity. Hotel blogs are becoming a knowledge layer for AI discovery and content marketing.
In Progress
The Palace Bias
Does ChatGPT confuse 5-star hotels with palaces?
When users ask for "best 5-star hotels," palace-classified properties take 62% of recommendation slots — despite being <10% of inventory. The bias intensifies in Tier 5-2 prompts.
Do AI Models Link Differently?
API-level test: GPT-5.1→5.4 vs Gemini — where do links point?
We called ChatGPT and Gemini APIs with web search enabled using identical hotel queries. Do different models link to different sources — or is it model-agnostic?
Hotel Page Speed Study
How fast are hotel websites — and does it matter for AI?
Core Web Vitals audit of 121K hotel homepages. LCP, CLS, FCP across countries, star ratings, and CMS platforms. Do faster hotels get more AI visibility? Do chain hotels outperform independents?
When Web Search Is Triggered
What makes AI models search the web for hotel queries?
Investigating which hotel queries trigger real-time web search in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — and which get answered from training data alone.
Location & Language Bias
Do US and French tourists get different hotel recommendations?
Comparing AI hotel recommendations based on user location and query language. Does a French tourist asking in French get different results than an American asking in English for the same destination?
YouTube: Strong in Gemini, Coming to ChatGPT
How YouTube videos influence AI hotel recommendations
YouTube is already a major source for Gemini hotel answers and is coming to ChatGPT. Analysis of video content types, channels, and optimization strategies for hotel visibility.
GPT-5.1 → GPT-5.4: Winners & Losers
Which hotels gained or lost visibility across model updates?
Documentation of how OpenAI model updates affect hotel recommendations. Tracking ranking changes, winners, losers, and volatility patterns from GPT-5.1 through GPT-5.4.
Start with the big picture
Our flagship report covers how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok recommend hotels.
Read AI Hotel Landscape 2026