To get a hotel recommended by ChatGPT, it must be easy to find, easy to identify and confirmed by sources the assistant trusts: an accessible website, consistent listings on Google and the OTAs, recent reviews and press mentions. ChatGPT does not sell its recommendations; it builds them from what the web says about you.
Key takeaways
- Your website must allow OAI-SearchBot, the crawler ChatGPT uses for search; sites that block it are not shown in ChatGPT search answers.
- ChatGPT relies heavily on Google data for hotels, so your Google Business Profile and reviews weigh a lot.
- Ads in ChatGPT are labeled and, according to OpenAI, do not influence its answers.
How does ChatGPT find hotels?
When a traveler asks for a hotel recommendation, ChatGPT usually runs a web search, collects dozens of sources, then writes a short list. An independent technical analysis published in 2026 observed that Google web results appeared in about 94% of hotel queries and Google Places data in about 89%, with Bing and Yelp as secondary sources. ChatGPT then matches each hotel to a single place listing; hotels with generic names or inconsistent addresses are matched less reliably.
Which sources does ChatGPT rely on to recommend a hotel?
- Your Google Business Profile: category, photos, ratings and recent reviews. Keep it complete with our Google Business Profile guide.
- Your website: clear facts about rooms, restaurant, spa, location and policies.
- OTAs and review platforms: Booking.com, Tripadvisor and Expedia confirm your positioning and reputation.
- Editorial sources: guides, press articles and curated lists ("best spa hotels in Provence").
How do you make your hotel easy for ChatGPT to identify?
- Check crawler access: allow OAI-SearchBot in your robots.txt. Blocking GPTBot only stops model training and does not remove you from ChatGPT search.
- Harmonize your data: the same name, address, phone number and category on your site, Google, OTAs and directories.
- Add schema.org Hotel markup: star rating, amenities, address and geo coordinates help machines classify your property.
- Write answer-ready content: short, factual passages that answer traveler questions, such as "Is breakfast included?" or "How far is the beach?".
- Keep reviews fresh and answer them: recent reviews and your replies give AI assistants up-to-date context.
These steps are the core of GEO for hotels.
Do ChatGPT ads change which hotels are recommended?
No, according to OpenAI: ads are clearly labeled as sponsored, shown separately from the answer and do not influence it. They are a paid channel in their own right, already used heavily by OTAs. Read our guide to ChatGPT Ads.
How do you track your hotel's visibility in ChatGPT?
Build a list of 20 to 30 prompts that match your guests' real searches (destination, style, occasion, budget) and test them every month, noting whether your hotel appears and how it is described. In Google Analytics 4, ChatGPT visits usually appear with utm_source=chatgpt.com. A file like llms.txt is optional and has no proven effect on recommendations.
How does Influence Society help hotels get recommended by AI?
At Influence Society, we start with an audit of what ChatGPT and other assistants say about the hotel today: is it cited, for which queries, and with which mistakes? We then correct the facts at the source and strengthen the hotel's own pages. As we explain in your hotel's website is no longer where the decision gets made, the choice now often happens before the guest reaches your site.
Sources: OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers; OpenAI, Testing ads in ChatGPT, February 9, 2026, updated August 11, 2026; Nicolas Sitter, Anatomy of ChatGPT hotel search 2026 (accessed October 2026).