Travel discovery is changing dramatically. For years, the playbook for hotels was clear: improve your website, invest in SEO, and rank well on Google. Now, that's no longer the case.
That strategy used to work because travellers searched the web the same way for nearly two decades.
But something new is happening. Travellers are not starting their journey with a search engine, but with a question to AI.
People ask AI tools things like:
And instead of just showing pages of results with matched keywords, AI assistants give a handful of thoughtful recommendations.
This raises a new question for hotels: Will AI recommend your property?
According to our research, traffic coming from AI tools to hotel websites increased by 150% in just two months, showing just how quickly this new discovery channel is emerging. This means that those who understand and use this shift early will have a clear advantage.
Let’s start with the basics: AI visibility means that a hotel’s website can be easily understood and then recommended by AI-powered travel assistants.
When someone asks AI where to stay, the system analyses information from across the web and suggests hotels that best match the request.
At Profitroom we’re seeing that the hotels most likely to appear in these answers share something important:
Their websites are clear, structured, and easy for machines to interpret.
Without a clear structure, even the most beautiful hotel website would be difficult for AI to understand. And if AI cannot understand what your property offers...it won't recommend it.
Think about how people actually plan their trip. They rarely search for something generic like: “hotel Italy." Instead, they think in experiences.
People ask questions like:
AI assistants are designed to answer these types of questions. Which is why travel discovery is shifting from keywords to conversations.
Several trends are accelerating this change:
For hospitality, this means search fundamentals are changing. Visibility is no longer just about ranking links. It’s about whether AI systems can recognise your property as the right answer to a traveller’s question.
At Profitroom, we believe AI assistants will become one of the most important discovery channels in hospitality, which is why we started preparing for this shift in 2025.
Just as search engines reshaped hotel marketing two decades ago, AI tools are now reshaping how travellers research destinations and their accommodations.
Our internal research already shows early signals of this shift, with AI-driven traffic increasing rapidly.
What we’re seeing today is likely just the beginning. And like every major technology shift, the biggest opportunities belong to the hotels that move early.
So what exactly helps a hotel appear in AI-generated recommendations?
Based on our experience of working with hundreds of hospitality websites, three factors make the biggest difference.
AI tools rely on structured information to understand a hotel.
This includes signals like:
Technologies such as Schema.org structured data help search engines and AI assistants interpret this information correctly. Basically, they help machines quickly understand what makes your hotel unique.
AI assistants recommend hotels based on experiences, not just keywords.
For example, someone might ask AI for:
To match those requests, AI looks for contextual information.
It analyses descriptions of:
Hotels that clearly describe these elements are much easier for AI to recommend.
Technical performance also plays a role. Fast websites with modern architecture are easier for AI systems to analyse. They also create a better experience for guests.
Research shows that a one-second delay in page loading can reduce conversions by up to 7%.
That means performance matters for both AI visibility and booking conversion.
As AI becomes a discovery channel, hotels need a new way to think about visibility.
At Profitroom, we call this approach Hotel GEO.
Hotel GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the process of optimising hotel websites so that AI-powered travel assistants can easily understand and recommend them.
Just as SEO helped hotels become visible in search engines, Hotel GEO helps hotels become visible in AI-generated travel recommendations.
See how one of our clients has already found success with Hotel GEO.
Recognising the shift toward AI discovery, Profitroom began integrating AI visibility principles directly into our website technology in 2025.
Instead of requiring hotels to adopt new optimisation tools, these capabilities are built directly into Profitroom’s WebAssistant.
This includes:
We want it to be as easy as possible for AI systems to understand and recommend your property.
Travel discovery is slowly moving from search results to AI answers.
Instead of browsing multiple websites, travellers increasingly rely on AI assistants to guide their choices.
For hotels, this creates a new kind of competition. Not just to rank higher, but to become the hotel that AI recommends.
At Profitroom, we saw this shift coming early. That’s why we began preparing our platform for AI visibility in 2025. You should never have to invest in fragmented tools to answer new technological challenges. We grow with you.
So when travellers ask AI where they should stay, your property is the answer.
Be the hotel AI recommends. Book a demo to see how.