How AI is changing the way guests discover and book hotels

January 5, 2026 by Scott van Hartesvelt

Navigating the new customer journey in the age of AI

A turning point for hospitality marketing

The hospitality industry has always been defined by human connection. It is a business built on relationships, experience, and trust. Yet the landscape around that human core continues to shift at a pace we have never seen before. Economic anxiety, dramatic changes in consumer behavior, and rapid advances in artificial intelligence are converging to reshape how travelers find, evaluate, and book a stay.

GCommerce founder Scott van Hartesvelt reflects on a career shaped by several eras of digital disruption and the resilience required to navigate change. Today, hoteliers face another moment of uncertainty but also another moment of opportunity.

The question is no longer whether AI will reshape the booking journey for hotels and resorts. The question is how fast it will happen and how hotels can establish an advantage while this transformation is underway.

This guide outlines what has changed, what is at stake, and what actions hotels can take today to increase direct bookings, strengthen visibility, and stay relevant as AI-powered discovery becomes the norm.

We have been here before

Every major shift in hospitality marketing has been met with uncertainty. Each one also delivered meaningful advantages for hotels and resorts that acted early.

The early 2000s

Paid search reshaped the marketing landscape. Google Ads allowed hotels to place targeted messages in front of travelers actively searching for a destination or type of stay. This was the beginning of behavioral targeting. The earliest adopters gained a performance advantage and lower acquisition costs while late adopters hesitated in the face of unfamiliar technology.

Late 2000s and early 2010s

The financial crisis created intense pressure on hotel budgets; at the same time, social platforms introduced psychographic targeting. These tools opened a new path for audience segmentation based on interests, affinities, and social patterns rather than search intent alone. Early adopters again benefited from lower costs and increased visibility.

Early 2020s

COVID created another existential shock. In parallel, significant advances in data, OTT, CTV, and micro targeting emerged. Adoption again varied. Some hotels leaned in while others pulled back.

Across each era, the adoption curve followed the same pattern: early movers gained sustained advantage while late adopters fell behind. This history matters because AI represents a disruption at a greater speed and scale than any that came before.

The new disruption facing hotels and resorts

The current environment combines two forces that make decision-making difficult for hotel leaders.

Declining confidence in financial performance

Tariffs, changes in international travel patterns, recession fears, negative RevPAR projections, and unpredictable spending behavior are creating real uncertainty for properties across the country.

A major shift in consumer behavior

Travelers are using new tools, planning differently, and engaging less with the traditional funnel. As a result, many hotels are reducing their investment in marketing. According to Gartner, hotels now allocate 8.4% of room revenue to marketing, down from 11% before the pandemic.

This is the environment in which AI adoption is accelerating.

AI adoption is moving at an unprecedented speed

Technology adoption has never moved this quickly. AI has reached ubiquity in record time.

52% of US adults now use tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Copilot.
ChatGPT has hundreds of millions of weekly active users.
All Fortune 500 companies have integrated AI into their operations.
ChatGPT reached 50 million users in 2 months, surpassing the adoption rates of television and the internet. The chart on slide 19 highlights this dramatic acceleration.

Large language model capability is doubling every four to six months, far outpacing the original innovation curve predicted by Moore’s Law. This acceleration is often referred to as Hinton’s Law, a model that reflects the compounding impact of data, algorithms, and computing power.

Travelers are not only adopting these tools; they are also using them. They are weaving them into their travel planning.

The traditional customer journey is collapsing

For more than two decades, the inspiration to booking journey has remained largely unchanged. Travelers move from inspiration to consideration, then preference, intent, and finally booking. Slide 22 illustrates this funnel.

Yet travelers no longer move through these phases in the same way.

The current state of travel planning

Travelers view an average of 141 pages of content over 45 days before booking.This should be a marketer’s dream because each page represents an opportunity for intervention. Yet customers do not enjoy the process:

56% say they feel overwhelmed by too many choices
80% say price comparisons take too long
71% worry they did not get the best deal
60% percent are dissatisfied with current planning options

This disconnect creates an opening for AI to simplify the journey.

How AI collapses the funnel

When asked directly, ChatGPT confirmed that AI assistants are already collapsing the inspiration to booking journey by helping travelers discover options, compare choices, and move toward a decision in a single conversation.

Search is moving from lists of links to direct answers
Discovery and decision now happen within one chat thread
Travelers want all-in-one planning, with ninety percent saying they prefer a single super-app that handles the full journey
Book from anywhere capabilities allow reservations to occur on platforms like Instagram or AI-powered interfaces without visiting a booking site directly

Microsoft Copilot has already integrated with major OTAs, enabling travelers to complete bookings from within a chat interface. This is no longer hypothetical. It is already in market and growing.

The real risk for hotels: disintermediation

The rise of AI-driven planning introduces an urgent risk. If travelers rely on AI systems that pull inventory from large marketplaces, OTAs once again become the default access point for customers.

ChatGPT will not process payments or operate as an OTA. Instead, it will surface deep links or API driven booking paths from partners. If hotels do not supply a direct booking endpoint, the assistant defaults to OTA inventory.

Most of the current integrations run through OTAs, not through individual property CRS systems. This recreates the same disintermediation challenge hotels faced in the early 2000s.

Properties that do nothing risk losing visibility at the earliest stage of inspiration and losing direct bookings at the point of conversion.

What hotels can do right now

The good news is that hotels can take action today. These steps strengthen visibility within AI-powered search and improve the likelihood that a property appears as an authoritative answer.

These tactics also support broader SEO performance, improve guest experience, and reinforce the property’s digital foundation.

1. Strengthen website technical health

Ensure AI bots are not blocked
Use structured, machine-readable content formats
Improve mobile friendliness and site speed
Fix 404 pages and broken links
Maintain a clear, logical site structure with internal links and updated sitemaps.

A healthy site gives AI systems confidence in the information being returned.

2. Implement schema and structured data

Schema is one of the strongest signals for answer engine optimization and large language model visibility. It helps AI interpret property attributes, room types, amenities, policies, dining, and experiences with clarity.

3. Elevate local SEO and review quality

Reviews play a critical role. AI tools use third-party sentiment to validate recommendations. Ensure listings are consistent and complete across Google Business Profile, Bing Places, and other platforms. Manage reviews with care.

4. Build robust FAQ content

LLMs respond well to question and answer structures. Add a dedicated FAQ page and embed Q&A sections on room, dining, amenity, and area pages. Mark up with FAQ schema.

5. Shift to conversational, human-centered content

Content now needs natural language, clarity, and empathy. This aligns with how travelers ask questions inside AI systems and helps the model surface the hotel as a relevant answer.

6. Strengthen on-page SEO and expand content depth

GCommerce recommends optimizing page elements, adding multi-modal formats, publishing local area content, and building itineraries. Itineraries are particularly powerful because AI uses them to support end-to-end trip planning.

7. Participate in forums and community channels

Reddit and YouTube provide rich contextual signals to AI models. Properties that participate authentically in destination-relevant conversations build authority.

8. Publish structured, answer-oriented social content

Use carousel posts, highlight local knowledge, and link back to schema-rich pages. Social content now plays a dual role: engaging consumers and supplying structured signals to AI models.

9. Strengthen PR and link building

High-quality links and mentions remain essential signals. Build presence across local organizations, publications, and affinity audiences.

10. Prepare for AI-driven advertising

Google has already announced AI Mode placements for select campaign types. The industry is moving toward commercialized AI surfaces, and hotel metasearch will likely play a larger role.

GCommerce direct inventory integration for AI systems

GCommerce has developed a breakthrough: GCommerce is now feeding direct hotel inventory into ChatGPT and other LLMs through API connected deep links via our beta.

This matters because:

It prevents defaulting to OTA inventory
It preserves control over the guest relationship
It supports direct bookings and transparency
It provides reporting on both traffic and booking behavior coming from AI channels
.

This integration represents an essential step in reclaiming visibility as AI systems become the primary path for many booking journeys. It also reinforces why hotel metasearch and Google hotel ads play an increasingly strategic role for properties and digital marketing agencies working to protect direct revenue.

AI is reshaping hospitality, but hotels still shape the guest experience

AI is not replacing the human connection that defines hospitality. It is reshaping how travelers reach you, how they evaluate choices, and where they choose to engage. For hotels and resorts, this moment requires clarity, adaptation, and the willingness to lean in while the landscape continues to shift.

The hotels that act now will strengthen their position, increase direct bookings, improve discoverability, and build resilience into their marketing ecosystem. Those that wait risk losing visibility across the earliest and most influential stage of the traveler journey.

The future of hospitality marketing is still grounded in authenticity, human experience, and thoughtful strategy. AI simply changes how we reach that moment of connection.

Join the GCommerce closed beta for direct inventory in AI systems

GCommerce is leading an industry-first initiative to connect property-level inventory directly to AI assistants like ChatGPT. This protects direct booking paths, reduces reliance on OTAs, and provides real-time insights into how AI is driving traveler behavior.

If you want your property to gain an early advantage and help shape how AI influences travel planning, join the closed beta.

Your property will be among the first in the industry to secure visibility inside AI-powered planning and booking experiences. Sign up for our beta now.

How to increase your booking window with smart revenue management

December 22, 2025 by Danielle Allen

For many hotels and resorts, shortened booking windows represent a significant challenge. Guests are waiting until the last minute to book, often holding out in hopes of a better deal or because travel plans have become more spontaneous.

And often, it works. As a property nears a low-inventory period, hotels will sharply reduce rates, reinforcing the guest’s belief that waiting until the last minute leads to savings.

While this can fill rooms, it also puts pressure on your revenue strategy, limits your ability to forecast accurately, and may leave potential revenue on the table.

The good news? There are techniques you can deploy to help you extend your booking window, giving you more lead time, steadier occupancy, and healthier average daily rates (ADR).

Here’s how to make it happen:

1. Analyze historical data to understand your current window

Before you can extend your booking window, you need to know exactly what it looks like today. Use your PMS and revenue management tools to track:

Average lead time by season
Lead time by segment (corporate, group, leisure)
Market trends and competitor lead times

Understanding when guests actually book allows you to target specific opportunities for improvement. For example, you might discover that leisure guests in summer book 14 days out on average, while corporate travelers book 30+ days in advance.

2. Use targeted pricing to encourage early commitments

A dynamic pricing strategy can nudge guests to book sooner. Instead of offering the lowest rates at the last minute, flip the script:

Early-bird discounts – Offer slightly lower rates for guests who book a set number of days in advance. Target discounting just 25% of the discount you typically would offer to fill short-term need periods.
Rate fences – Create packages that add value for early bookers, such as breakfast or free parking.
Advance purchase offers – Require prepayment for the best price, locking in revenue earlier.
“Best Rates of” messaging - Announce your best rates of the season or even the year. Train your audience to understand that they won’t find a better rate than the one they are currently looking at at any other time of the year.

Pro tip: Make sure these rates are visible and compelling across all your distribution channels, especially your direct booking site.

3. Leverage your marketing calendar

Your marketing team can be a powerful ally in extending the booking window. Plan campaigns that create urgency for earlier booking:

Seasonal teaser campaigns – Build excitement months ahead of peak season.
Email drip campaigns – Nurture past guests with “plan ahead” messages.
Countdowns & limited-time offers – Encourage guests to book before the rate increases or the package sells out.

The key is to align promotions with booking behavior, launching them before your current peak booking window to push it earlier.

4. Offer flexible cancellation policies

One reason guests wait to book? Fear of losing money if plans change. Offering a flexible cancellation policy (within reason) removes this hesitation and encourages guests to commit earlier.

For example:

Offer a discounted, non-refundable early-bird rate alongside a slightly higher flexible rate.
Use tiered cancellation windows, more generous for earlier bookings, stricter for last-minute.

This balance protects your revenue while giving guests the confidence to book now instead of later.

5. Partner with groups and events

If your market hosts annual conferences, festivals, or sporting events, partner with organizers to offer exclusive rates for attendees. Groups tend to book earlier, which helps smooth occupancy and creates a base from which you can yield higher rates for last-minute demand.

6. Monitor and adjust in real time

Revenue management is never “set it and forget it.” Monitor your pace reports weekly (or even daily in high season) to see how your booking window is shifting. If pick-up is slow in advance, adjust your pricing, marketing push, or availability to encourage earlier commitments.

Why extending your booking window matters

A longer booking window gives you:

Better forecasting accuracy for staffing and inventory.
More opportunities to yield rates for last-minute demand.
Stronger cash flow from prepayments.
Reduced stress for operations teams.

When you combine smart data analysis, strategic pricing, and proactive marketing, you can nudge guests to book earlier, while still capturing late demand at premium rates.

Bottom line: Extending your booking window isn’t about pushing guests into early decisions. It’s about creating value, trust, and a compelling reason to plan ahead. With the right revenue management tactics, you’ll turn unpredictable, last-minute bookings into a well-paced stream of revenue that supports your long-term profitability.

How your property can show up in GEN AI search results

December 15, 2025 by Danielle Allen

GEN AI search, built using LLMs or large language models, are quickly becoming the new front door for travel discovery. Instead of scrolling through ten pages of links, guests are now asking GEN AI-powered search engines for personal recommendations, trip plans, and the best properties for specific needs. That shift creates both opportunity and risk for hotels and resorts. Visibility depends on clear signals, structured data, and a strong foundation that AI tools can understand.

Here is how properties can strengthen their presence across GEN AI ecosystems and increase direct bookings in a landscape where AI is becoming a primary travel advisor.

1. Start with a healthy and accessible website

Your website is the foundation of your visibility. If AI agents cannot crawl or interpret it, they cannot recommend your property.

A strong foundation includes:

Removing no follow directives that block AI crawlers.
Fixing broken links and improving internal linking so content forms a clear hierarchy.
Improving load speed, especially on mobile.

A clean, crawlable site gives LLM bots the clarity they need to understand what your property offers. This is the starting point for any hospitality marketing strategy and is still one of the most effective ways to increase direct bookings.

2. Use schema to structure your content

LLMs rely heavily on structured data markup to interpret information. Schema informs LLMs about details such as rooms, amenities, dining, FAQs, and more.

Key steps include:

Adding schema markup to high-intent pages, including rooms, dining, amenities, FAQs, and local experiences.
Ensure your hospitality marketing agency audits and maintains all structured data.

Schema markup isn’t new; it's been used to provide search engines with structured information. Schema markup’s importance is increased with LLMs and is often the single most impactful technical improvement for hotel metasearch visibility and LLM recommendations. It gives AI confidence in your content and increases the likelihood of appearing in results for hotels and resorts in your destination.

3. Local SEO (still) matters, and reviews carry more weight than ever

Because LLMs summarize information, they rarely list ten properties. They often recommend only one or two. Local SEO and reputation signals influence those recommendations. Our studies have found that Google gives preference to its own product information, notably Google Business Profile, but all GEN AI platforms we’ve studied surface information from these top listing sites.

Focus on:

Keeping NAP details consistent across every platform.
Investing in review generation and consistent review management.
Responding to reviews with clarity and care.

Reviews act as trust signals in LLM ecosystems. Properties with strong sentiment, detailed feedback, and active engagement are more likely to be recommended organically.

4. Build FAQ content that mirrors LLM query patterns

LLMs are designed to answer questions. Your content should mirror that structure.

Ways to support AI understanding:

Create a dedicated FAQ page.
Add page-specific FAQs to rooms, amenities, dining, and attractions pages.
Answer questions with simple, conversational phrasing.

Clear questions and clear answers allow AI systems to confidently incorporate your property in responses. This content also supports SEO and Google hotel ads placements.

5. Write in natural, conversational language

LLMs favor clarity and human wording over heavy marketing language. Content that sounds like a local guide performs better than content that reads like a brochure.

Enhance your content by:

Using approachable phrasing.
Incorporating question-based structures that align with real user queries.
Adding semantic clarity, such as walking distances, landmarks, and context.

This approach supports organic visibility, metasearch clarity, and the guest experience.

6. Prioritize on-page SEO and content depth

Content remains a core signal for both search engines and AI tools. Depth matters more than volume.

Strengthen your foundation with:

Clear titles and headers.
Organized page structure and scannable formatting.
Regular blog content that explains experiences, itineraries, or local insights.

Even if guests never read your blog, it fuels LLMs with the context they need to understand your property. This supports direct booking growth and enhances your digital marketing footprint.

7. Create unique destination itineraries

LLMs often generate complete trip plans. Properties that supply detailed itineraries are more likely to be included in those recommendations as cited sources.

Build 3, 5, and 7-day itineraries that cover themes such as culinary experiences, culture, outdoors, family travel, or romance. Include your property naturally within the flow of the trip. These pages do not need to drive organic traffic. They exist to train AI models on your destination expertise.

8. Use video to strengthen multimodal signals

Modern LLMs process both text and visual content. Video offers rich context that AI tools use to understand what makes your property unique.

Support AI visibility by:

Uploading and optimizing videos on YouTube. (YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine and a favorite training source for LLMs)
Including clear titles, strong descriptions, and schema markup.
Repurposing video clips within blogs and FAQs.

Video is a high-value signal source for hotel metasearch, AI recommendations, and overall hospitality marketing.

9. Participate in Reddit and social channels with purpose

Organic website content is not enough. AI tools pull signals from social channels, forums, and structured conversations across the web.

Contribute thoughtful content such as:

Q&A-style posts that answer common traveler questions.
Carousel-style explainers with practical tips.
Long form posts that link to structured, schema-rich pages.

Social engagement becomes another data source that validates your expertise.

10. Prepare for GEN AI platform advertising

GEN AI native platform advertising will rapidly reshape how guests discover hotels and resorts. Google is already commercializing AI results, and ChatGPT is expected to introduce paid placements in the next two years.

Properties with strong structured content, consistent signals, and clear data will be positioned to benefit from early adoption. This shift parallels the early days of hotel metasearch, when proactive brands gained an advantage that compounds over time.

11. Protect against OTA disintermediation

As LLMs begin offering direct booking experiences, they prefer real-time structured feeds, notably MCPs. If a hotel does not provide one, the system defaults to OTA inventory.

OTAs are already integrating with major AI platforms, and that means third parties may receive the booking opportunity before the property does. This dynamic mirrors early metasearch displacement, where a lack of structured data gave OTAs an advantage.

12. Use direct MCP feeds to reclaim visibility

Hotels can now surface their own inventory directly in LLM search results. This returns power to the property and restores opportunities to increase direct bookings.

GCommerce’s emerging MCP connectivity provides:

Real-time rates and availability.
Direct booking links.
Structured data that positions properties ahead of OTAs in AI-generated results.

If you are ready to strengthen your presence in LLM search results and position your property for the next era of discovery, our team can help. GCommerce builds the data foundation, structured content, and API connectivity that hotels and resorts need to increase direct bookings and stay visible in an AI-driven landscape.

Contact GCommerce to start the conversation and learn how your property can lead in the new world of LLM-powered travel.

[Ebook] 2026 digital marketing trends & predictions for hotels and resorts

December 9, 2025 by GCommerce Solutions

The pace of change in hospitality marketing is accelerating. Travelers are searching differently, expecting clearer answers, and relying on platforms that reward structured data and transparent pricing. Hotels and resorts are entering a year where connected intelligence and metasearch performance will influence more revenue than ever before.

Our new ebook, 2026 digital marketing trends and predictions for hotels and resorts, offers a clear view of what is ahead and how properties can prepare for a more competitive landscape. It breaks down the shifts that matter most, including the rise of first party intelligence, the growing influence of hotel metasearch, and the role of answer-ready content in increasing direct bookings.

Inside the ebook you will learn how to:
• Strengthen your property’s position across hotel metasearch and Google hotel ads
• Use first party data to support personalized marketing and higher conversion rates
• Build connected data ecosystems that unify insights across channels
• Improve visibility within conversational and AI-driven search environments
• Create clarity and trust with accurate pricing, consistent details, and structured content

This guide is built for hospitality leaders who want to move into 2026 with confidence. It highlights the strategies that help properties increase direct bookings and partner more effectively with a hospitality marketing agency or digital marketing agency.

Download the ebook and give your property a strategic edge for the year ahead.

[On demand webinar recording] How AI is reshaping the inspiration to booking journey for hotels and resorts

December 3, 2025 by GCommerce Solutions

AI is reshaping how travelers plan and book. Nearly a billion people now use tools like ChatGPT, and many are already collapsing the entire journey from inspiration to booking into a single conversation.

“AI assistants are already collapsing the inspiration-to-booking journey and changing how travelers discover options, compare, and convert," says Scott van Hartesvelt, Founder of GCommerce Solutions.

Here is what you will learn:

✨ Why traveler behavior feels so unpredictable
🤖 How AI assistants are influencing bookings behind the scenes
🔍 The rise of zero click search and what it means for your visibility
💡 How to prepare your property for Answer Engine Optimization

If you want to stay ahead of this change, this session is a must watch.

Download the on-demand webinar below. 👇

From chaos to clarity: The new era of hospitality data transparency

December 2, 2025 by GCommerce Solutions

The data paradox in hospitality

Hotels have never had more data at their disposal. PMS reports, CRS exports, Google Ads dashboards, OTA extranets, the list goes on. But more data hasn’t meant more clarity. Instead, it’s created chaos:

Reports that don’t align
Spreadsheets that eat up hours
Conflicting KPIs that leave leaders second-guessing decisions

For ownership groups, this chaos multiplies. Each property reports differently. Each channel measures performance in silos. Benchmarking becomes guesswork.

The shift toward transparency

Hospitality is moving into a new era: data transparency. Rollup tools now consolidate results at the property, portfolio, and channel level. Instead of drowning in fragments, hoteliers gain one coherent story of performance.

Transparency matters because OTAs already use their data advantage to optimize in real time. If hotels want to compete, they need to level the playing field with equally fast, clear insights.

What transparency unlocks

At the property level — Managers can see where campaigns succeed and fix weak spots quickly.
At the portfolio level — Owners can benchmark properties consistently and act with confidence.
At the channel level — Marketers can identify waste, prove efficiency, and reallocate spend.

Transparency turns data into action. It shifts reporting from backward-looking to forward-driving.

From burden to competitive edge

With transparent, unified reporting, hoteliers reclaim control. They can compete on strategy, not just budget. They can move faster, invest smarter, and grow stronger.

The era of chaos is ending. For hotels ready to embrace transparency, clarity is now within reach.

Discover how GCommerce can take your property’s data from chaos to clarity.