How Do You Get Your Hotel Recommended by ChatGPT in 2026?

To get your hotel recommended by ChatGPT, make sure ChatGPT can access your website, put the facts guests ask about on the pages it reads most, and keep your listings complete and consistent. ChatGPT relies on hotel websites more than any other AI platform we track, so your own website is your strongest lever.

ChatGPT is the AI platform travellers use most when they look for a place to stay. This guide focuses on ChatGPT only and is based on what we saw while tracking ChatGPT answers for hotels in our beta programme. For the bigger picture across all AI platforms, read our guide to GEO for hotels.

In short:

• ChatGPT searches the web and usually recommends 6 to 10 hotels per answer.
• It reads hotel websites heavily, especially the main hotel page and pages about specific needs.
• Your website must be open to OpenAI's search crawler, OAI-SearchBot.
• Information hidden behind JavaScript, in PDFs or on rarely linked pages is often missed.
• Small, factual pages for specific needs, like parking, are the fastest way in.

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How does ChatGPT decide which hotels to recommend?

When a guest asks ChatGPT for a hotel, ChatGPT searches the web, reads a handful of pages and builds a short list from what it finds. It doesn't use a fixed ranking. Researchers call optimizing for this kind of answer generative engine optimization.

In our tracking, ChatGPT reads these sources most often for hotel questions:

• Hotel websites, especially the main hotel page and landing pages about specific topics
• Booking sites such as Booking.com and Expedia
• Local and destination websites, for example city tourism portals and hotel directories

Compared with Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity, ChatGPT gives hotel websites far more weight. That's good news: your website is the one source you fully control.

Two details matter for your position in the answer:

• ChatGPT matches the exact need. One hotel had the name of its square in the headline of its main page. ChatGPT recommended it for questions about that square, but not for a nearby landmark the website never mentioned.
• Long answers push hotels down. For broad questions, ChatGPT may list a dozen or more hotels. Specific questions produce shorter lists, where you're more likely to be named early.

How do you make sure ChatGPT can read your website?

Before any content work, check that ChatGPT can access your pages at all. According to OpenAI's documentation on its crawlers, each crawler has a different job:

• OAI-SearchBot decides whether your website can appear in ChatGPT's search answers. If your robots.txt blocks it, your pages won't be shown there.
• GPTBot collects content for training AI models. Blocking it doesn't affect ChatGPT search.
• ChatGPT-User fetches pages when a user asks ChatGPT to open them. It isn't used to decide what appears in search.

Ask your web agency to check three things:

1. robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot. Changes take about 24 hours to take effect.
2. Important content is plain HTML. Text that only loads with JavaScript, for example FAQ answers that open on click, is often not seen. Google's guide to JavaScript SEO basics explains why.
3. Key information isn't only in PDFs. AI platforms can read PDFs, but not reliably. Put menus, room details and policies on normal web pages.

What are the seven steps to get recommended by ChatGPT?

1. Check what ChatGPT says about you today

Ask ChatGPT the questions your guests would ask, for example "Which hotels in Hamburg are good for business travellers?" Note which hotels it names and which sources it shows. Ask each question several times: answers change from run to run, so a single answer tells you little.

2. Put key facts on your main hotel page

Your main hotel page is the page ChatGPT reads most often on your website. Facts that only live on a sub-page are easily missed. One hotel we tracked had an underground garage with 600 spaces and 24 EV chargers, but ChatGPT didn't recommend it for parking because that information sat on a page it rarely read.

Add the facts guests choose a hotel by: location, parking, breakfast, family rooms, pets, meeting rooms, accessibility, wellness.

3. Make your FAQ readable for ChatGPT

A FAQ is ideal for ChatGPT because it answers guest questions in their own words. But in many hotels we looked at, ChatGPT never read it:

• The FAQ sat on its own page, only linked from the footer, so ChatGPT rarely opened it.
• The answers loaded with JavaScript. ChatGPT saw the questions but not the answers.

The fix: add a FAQ section to your main hotel page, for example collapsed at the bottom, with answers in the page's HTML. Then mark it up as FAQ structured data. Write answers with concrete facts, such as "Yes, our underground garage has 120 spaces and 8 EV chargers, at 18 euros per night", not marketing phrases.

4. Build simple pages for specific needs

A city hotel in Salzburg was rarely recommended for specific needs, with one exception: parking. It had a plain page about parking, with the number of spaces, prices and EV chargers. ChatGPT read that page again and again.

Build the same kind of page for the needs that matter to your guests: families, pets, meetings, long stays, accessibility. Plain text with concrete facts is enough. These pages face little competition, so they're often picked up within weeks. Good SEO for hotels helps them get found faster.

5. Describe your location in words

Guests ask ChatGPT for hotels near a landmark, a station or a trade fair. ChatGPT can only match that if your website says it. A map isn't enough. List distances in plain text, for example "5 minutes' walk to the main station, 1.2 km to the old town". Hotel groups can use one page with a short section per property.

6. Complete your listings

ChatGPT also reads booking sites, especially Booking.com. Tick every facility that applies, keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere, and remove outdated details. Our guide to optimizing your Booking.com profile walks you through it.

7. Get listed on the local sites ChatGPT reads

For many destinations, ChatGPT reads city tourism portals and hotel directories. In Berlin, for example, it often read the official city and tourism websites and boutique hotel directories. Check which local sites appear in ChatGPT's sources for your city, and whether your hotel is listed there.

How long does it take until ChatGPT recommends your hotel?

It depends on where the change happens:

• Pages ChatGPT already reads often, like your main hotel page or your Booking.com listing: changes can show an effect within days.
• New pages, like a parking or family page, first need to be found by search engines. Expect a few weeks.
• Third-party listings depend on how fast the other site adds you.

Make a few changes at a time. If you change ten things on the same day, you won't know which one worked.

How do you check whether it worked?

Asking ChatGPT yourself now and then gives you a snapshot, not a trend. Answers vary between runs and depend on your location and chat history.

The MARA AI Visibility Tracker asks your guest questions on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews again and again. It shows how often your hotel is recommended, which competitors are named instead, and which pages ChatGPT read for each answer, so you can see exactly what changed after you updated your website.

Start your 7-day free trial and see in 15 minutes whether ChatGPT recommends your hotel.

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