Make your hotel visible to AI: a checklist for ChatGPT

Be discoverable. Be accurate. Be bookable.

Right now, someone is asking ChatGPT where to stay in your city. They're not Googling or browsing through endless listings. They're having a conversation, and AI is giving them a personalized shortlist of hotels that match exactly what they're looking for.

Is your property part of that answer?

ChatGPT alone sees over 5 billion monthly visits. Travelers - potential guests -  are using it to find hotels the same way they once asked friends for recommendations. The difference is that AI can only recommend what it knows about. If it can't find your hotel, you simply won't show up.

Hotels that appear in these conversations today are building visibility that grows over time. AI remembers what it learns, and the properties establishing themselves now will be the ones it keeps recommending as this channel expands. The industry calls this Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and you can think of them as SEO's evolution for the AI era.

New to AI terminology? Our AI glossary for hoteliers has you covered.

So what does your hotel website need? Let's get into it.

1. Make sure AI can actually see you

Many hotel websites accidentally block the very systems that power AI recommendations. There's a file called robots.txt that controls who can access your site, and if it's blocking AI crawlers, you're invisible before you even start.

This is the easiest fix on the list and the most important one to get right.

Do this: Ask your web team to check your robots.txt file and open access to AI systems. It takes five minutes and ensures your content can be discovered and used to power these recommendations.

2. Give AI a roadmap to your best content

Most hoteliers haven't heard of llms.txt yet, but it's becoming essential for AI visibility. This simple text file tells AI exactly where to find your most important content: room descriptions, amenities, location details and your booking page, all in one organized place.

Without it, AI wanders through your site like a confused guest, getting lost in cookie banners and outdated blog posts. With it, AI goes straight to what matters.

Companies like Cloudflare, Stripe and Zapier already use this approach, and hotels should too.

Do this: Create a text file listing your 10-15 most important pages and save it at yoursite.com/llms.txt. If that sounds too technical, a partner can handle it for you.

3. Help AI understand what you offer

Schema markup is code that helps AI understand your hotel at a glance: your star rating, room types, amenities, price range and location. When this is set up properly, AI gets an accurate picture of your property. When it's missing, AI has to guess, and those guesses are usually wrong.

Do this: WordPress users can start with plugins like Yoast SEO. For a complete setup, work with someone who knows hospitality technology. The goal is making sure AI understands what you actually offer.

4. Answer the questions travelers are already asking

AI exists to answer questions, and travelers have plenty of them. Does this hotel have parking? How far is it from the airport? Is breakfast included? What time is check-in?

If your website already answers these in a clear FAQ format, AI can quote you directly and recommend you with confidence. If it doesn't, AI moves on to a hotel that does.

Think about what your front desk team answers twenty times a day. That's exactly what belongs in your FAQ.

Do this: Build an FAQ section using real guest questions as headers and write clear, complete answers. Update it whenever you notice new questions coming up repeatedly.

5. Write like you're talking to a guest

Old school SEO taught us to cram keywords into every sentence. AI doesn't work that way. It responds to natural conversation and understands context the way humans do.

Travelers aren't typing "hotel Miami pool rooftop" into ChatGPT. They're asking "Where should I stay for a bachelorette weekend in Miami with a great pool scene?" Your content should sound like advice from a knowledgeable friend, not copy from a marketing department.

Do this: Read your website out loud. If it sounds stiff or stuffed with keywords, rewrite it to sound conversational. Your guests will appreciate it, and AI will understand you better.

6. Let your reputation speak for you

AI trusts what it can verify across multiple sources. Strong reviews, consistent information across platforms and a solid online presence all signal that you're a safe recommendation.

Hotels that deliver excellent guest experiences have a new advantage: AI is starting to notice and reward that consistency.

Do this: Make sure your name, address and details match everywhere online. Respond to reviews thoughtfully and make it easy for happy guests to share their experiences.

7. Clean up outdated content

That room description from 2019 mentioning a restaurant that closed during the pandemic? AI found it, shared it with a traveler, and now someone is showing up expecting something that no longer exists.

Stale content doesn't just confuse travelers. It tells AI your site isn't reliable, which makes it less likely to recommend you at all.

Do this: Schedule quarterly content audits where you walk through your site like a first-time visitor. Update or remove anything that's no longer accurate.

8. Lead with what makes you different

"Conveniently located with comfortable rooms" describes every hotel everywhere, and AI can't do anything useful with that kind of generic copy.

Your rooftop bar with the skyline view, your partnership with a local chef, your sustainability initiatives, your building from 1892: these are the details that help AI match you with travelers looking for exactly what you offer.

Do this: List the five things that make guests choose you over the property next door, then make sure those details are front and center on your website rather than buried in an "About Us" page.

9. See yourself through AI's eyes

Ask ChatGPT to recommend hotels in your market, then ask about your property by name. It costs nothing and takes ten minutes.

What comes back? Is the information accurate, outdated, or completely absent? The gap between reality and how AI perceives you is your to-do list.

Do this: Spend ten minutes this week asking AI in incognito about your market and write down what you learn. You'll spot issues and opportunities you won't find anywhere else.

First movers have always had the advantage

The hotels and OTAs that mastered Google SEO in 2004 still dominate organic search today. The brands that built direct booking strategies early now own their guest relationships.

AI is the next chapter in that story, and it's moving more rapidly than any channel before it. ChatGPT reached 800 million users faster than any platform in history.

The hotels and OTAs showing up in AI conversations today aren't just getting bookings. They're training AI to keep recommending them over time. That advantage only becomes more powerful as the systems continue to learn.

Connect AI makes visibility simple

Let's be honest: you got into hospitality to create great guest experiences, not to manage robots.txt files and schema markup. You're already juggling room rates, staffing, guest reviews and a dozen other priorities. Adding "become an AI visibility expert" to that list just isn't realistic for most hoteliers.

That's exactly why we built Connect AI.

Connect AI handles the work for you

Connect AI takes care of the technical work so you can focus on your guests. No learning curve. No new skills required, just real results.

With Connect AI your hotel becomes:

Discoverable. You show up in AI searches across ChatGPT.

Understandable. Your content and brand story are automatically formatted so AI accurately represents what makes your property special.

Bookable. Direct booking links send guests straight to your booking engine with zero commissions and no intermediaries.

Connect AI turns your hotel into a single source of truth that AI can read, trust and recommend. When travelers ask where to stay, you're part of the conversation with a clear path to book direct.

You don't need to become a tech expert. You just need to be visible where your next guests are searching. We'll handle the rest.

Your next guest is already asking AI for recommendations. Be there when they do.

See how Connect AI works.