How to get ChatGPT to recommend your hotel

For twenty years, a guest looked for a hotel on Google, compared ten links and often ended up on a booking platform. Today, more and more travelers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini directly: "a quiet hotel with a restaurant in the 16th arrondissement, for a romantic weekend." The answer fits in three names. If yours is not among them, you do not exist in that conversation.

This is what we call GEO, for Generative Engine Optimization: the work that allows a brand to be understood, then cited, by answer engines. For a hotel, a restaurant or a hospitality group, it is not just another technical topic. It is the natural next step of search optimization, with one new rule: AI only cites what it can verify.

People no longer search, they ask

A search engine ranks pages. An answer engine writes an answer, then backs it up with sources. It reads your website, but also your Google Business Profile, reviews, press coverage, guides and the platforms where you appear. It cross-checks everything, and keeps the information that comes up again and again, clearly and consistently.

The consequence is simple: a beautiful homepage is no longer enough. What matters is that a machine can answer precise questions about your property without hesitating, and that those answers are the same everywhere.

What AI looks at before citing you

• Clear facts. Number of rooms, neighborhood, type of cuisine, opening hours, services. Spelled out in plain text, not hidden in an image or a PDF.

• Answers to real questions. Parking, pets, accessibility, private hire, breakfast, late check-in: the questions your guests ask at the front desk are exactly the ones they ask AI.

• A consistent identity. The same name, the same address, the same description on your website, Google, platforms and social media. Contradictions make the machine doubt, and it would rather cite someone else.

• Outside proof. Press articles, guides, detailed reviews: what others say about you carries more weight than what you say about yourself.

• Structured data. Invisible markup in your page code that says explicitly "this is a hotel, here is its address, its rooms, its restaurant." It is the machines' native language.

Five concrete steps for a hotel

1. One page for every topic that matters. The restaurant, the bar, the rooms, meetings, private events: each deserves its own page, with a clear title and copy that answers the question people have when they land on it. A catch-all "Experiences" page serves neither your guests nor AI.

2. An FAQ written for real. Not three generic questions, but the fifteen you actually get asked, with short, factual answers. It is the format answer engines reuse most readily, sometimes almost word for word.

3. Structured data markup. Hotel, restaurant, address, hours, price range, FAQ: all of this can be declared in the website's code. Invisible to visitors, decisive for machines.

4. Information aligned everywhere. Google Business Profile, booking platforms, social media, directories: an audit often reveals three versions of your opening hours or two different descriptions of the property. We align everything, and keep it up to date.

5. A voice that exists beyond your own website. Press relations, collaborations and detailed reviews feed the sources AI consults. A journal on your own website, with useful content (the neighborhood, the seasonal menu, the story of the place), plays the same role.

“AI doesn't recommend the most beautiful property. It recommends the one it understands best.”

What not to do

Write for robots rather than for your guests. Keyword-stuffed copy, mass-produced pages and fake FAQs are spotted quickly, by readers and machines alike. GEO rewards the opposite: precision, clarity and consistency. In short, what a great house already does at the front desk, carried over to the web.

Another common mistake: betting everything on AI and forgetting Google. Both feed on the same signals. A fast, well-structured, well-ranked website remains the foundation everything else rests on.

Where to start

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini the questions your guests would ask: "best hotel for a corporate retreat in Paris 16th," "Italian restaurant with a club in Saint-Germain." Note who gets cited, and what is said about you when you are. That is your starting point.

After that, it is methodical work: listing the facts, rewriting key pages, adding markup, aligning listings and tracking how answers change over the months. That is exactly what we do at ODi7 for our hospitality and luxury clients.