What we found in 576 AI hotel answers
In October 2026 we asked ChatGPT, Gemini and DeepSeek 64 hotel questions across eight cities, three times each. Each assistant behaved differently. DeepSeek leaned on travel guides and booking sites, with hotel websites making up about 7% of its sources, while ChatGPT linked straight to hotel websites in about two in three answers and Gemini sent guests to Google Travel listings in 82% of answers.
The shortlists were also unstable. About half the hotels changed when an assistant answered the same question again, and all three assistants named only about 7% of hotels for the same question. Independent hotels did best on specific questions, taking about 65% of the mentions in boutique answers but only about 12% in luxury answers. The full study and the raw data are free to read and reuse.
Track the questions your guests ask
SearchSeal starts from your website and your area and suggests guest questions such as "boutique hotel near [landmark]" or "where to stay in [city] for a business trip". You can add your own in any language your guests use, which matters because the same question asked in Japanese or French often returned a different shortlist from the English one. Connecting Google Search Console adds searches already bringing guests to your site as starting points.
Every question runs daily on AI Overview, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and Copilot, Google AI Mode, DeepSeek and others are available as add-ons. As answers vary between runs, SearchSeal reports how often you appear over time rather than one result.
See who is picked instead and why
For each assistant and question, the Rivals view lists hotels named in answers that omit you. Each saved answer keeps its source links, so you can see whether a Time Out list, a booking site or a review page is behind the hotels that keep winning. A guide repeatedly appearing in answers about your area without naming you gives you a concrete starting point.
Fixes a hotel can actually make
Most of the pages behind a hotel answer belong to someone else, so the fixes are a mix of your own site and the places that write about you. The Actions page orders them and presents evidence for each. A task might ask you to get listed in a guide that keeps appearing, correct a wrong fact such as your area or a closed restaurant, add a page that answers what guests ask (family rooms, walking distance to the old town, airport transfers), or fix a site problem such as a blocked AI crawler or missing structured data.
When you mark a task done, SearchSeal compares the answers from before and after. These samples vary by run, showing what moved without proving that a change caused a result.
What SearchSeal does not do for hotels
SearchSeal does not manage your booking-site listings, your reviews or your Google Business Profile. It shows when those pages appear in AI answers; you edit them in their own tools. Its page checks cover your own website only, and share of answers is not a measure of bookings.
Hotel groups and agencies
Brands are unlimited on every plan and questions are pooled across them, so a group or a hotel marketing agency can track several properties from one account. Each property can track 25 rival hotels, and Pro and Max include unlimited team members. Each Monday every property gets a short report with a read-only link for an owner or management company. See plans and pricing.
FAQ
Do AI assistants read my hotel's own website?
It depends on the assistant. In our study, ChatGPT linked to hotel websites in about two in three answers, while DeepSeek's sources were mostly guides and booking sites and Gemini mostly sent guests to Google Travel listings. Both your own site and pages covering you matter.
Can SearchSeal track questions in other languages?
Yes. Write questions in any language, and SearchSeal asks them as written.
Does SearchSeal update my listings on booking sites?
No. It shows which booking pages and guides appear in AI answers, and you change those listings yourself.