For years, the hotel distribution battle was pretty straightforward: direct vs. OTA, with Google happily collecting tolls from everyone. AI is scrambling that model. Phocuswright says 33% of U.S. travelers now use GenAI for trip research, while 44% say they’d book directly inside an AI platform.
Now everyone wants to own that conversation. Google is bringing hotel offers and booking capabilities into AI search, while Amazon is connecting Alexa+ with travel inventory and its massive base of stored payment credentials. Meanwhile, Booking.com says Google’s AI Overviews are already putting pressure on traditional organic search, and even they haven’t cracked the code on consistently showing up in LLMs.
Of course, everyone and their sister now has a GEO/AEO/AI visibility tool and the “secret sauce” to get your hotel recommended by ChatGPT. Don’t believe it. As we’ve discussed before, for now, it’s basically SEO on steroids: great content, accurate and structured hotel information, strong third-party signals, and a consistent story across the web. Tomorrow? Ask me again.
We spent 20 years trying to get travelers to bypass the middlemen and visit our hotel websites. The next challenge may be getting them to visit a website at all.
Related Stories: Google AI Ads, AI Referrals, AI Stats
