Ask ChatGPT or Google’s AI Mode for a romantic boutique hotel in Bath, or a quiet luxury retreat in the Lake District, and you won’t get ten links. You’ll get a short answer naming a handful of hotels. For an independent hotel, the question is simple: are you one of them?
New research presented in London this month suggests that for many independents the answer is no. But the reason is narrower, and more fixable, than most owners assume.
AI doesn’t dislike independent hotels. It often doesn’t know them.
At Skift’s Data + AI Summit in London on 6 October, an analysis of 27,360 AI travel answers covering 659 hotels in Barcelona found that independent hotels were eight times more likely than chain hotels to be unknown to the AI systems tested. Once an independent hotel was known, though, it was recommended at roughly the same rate as a chain (Skift, 11 October 2026).
In other words, the gap is discovery, not favouritism. And the strongest factor linked to whether a hotel was discoverable was the volume of its Google reviews.
That matters in Europe, where around three-quarters of hotels are independently owned, according to the figures Skift reported. It matters most for luxury independents, whose guests are exactly the people asking AI for a curated recommendation.
“But hardly anyone books through AI”
That’s true, and it’s the wrong reason to wait. Booking Holdings has disclosed that less than 1% of its room nights come from AI channels (Skift).
But AI is now where the shortlist gets made. Skift Research reported in September that more than 70% of travellers use AI to research and compare options, while fewer than 16% are comfortable booking through it. A September survey of 1,000 US travellers who use AI found that only 5% book exactly what the AI suggests – and that after an AI recommendation, 49% go to the hotel’s official website (HotelOperations, October 2026).
| What travellers do | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Use AI to research and compare options | More than 70% | Skift Research, September 2026 |
| Comfortable booking through AI | Fewer than 16% | Skift Research, September 2026 |
| Book exactly what AI suggests | 5% | HotelOperations, October 2026 |
| Visit the hotel’s official website after an AI recommendation | 49% | HotelOperations, October 2026 |
| Booking Holdings room nights from AI channels | Less than 1% | Skift, 11 October 2026 |
Research happens in AI; the booking still happens on a website. Survey figures are from a September survey of 1,000 US travellers who use AI.
That is the opportunity. If AI puts your hotel on the shortlist, many guests come to your own website next, which is where direct bookings happen. If it doesn’t, you never make the list at all.
The booking tools are being built around the big brands
Google’s AI Mode began taking hotel bookings in the US on 27 August 2026. Its ten launch partners are large brands and online travel agencies, including Booking.com, Expedia, Hilton, Marriott and IHG. None of them is an independent hotel (HotelOperations).
For an independent, that means the first AI booking routes will run through intermediaries. Being known to AI, and described accurately by it, is the part you can control now.
Six things an independent luxury hotel can do this quarter
- Find out whether AI knows you. Ask ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity the questions your guests ask, such as “romantic spa hotel near Bath” or “dog-friendly luxury hotel in the Cotswolds”. Run each question more than once, because answers change.
- Earn reviews that describe the stay. Review volume was the strongest discoverability signal in the Barcelona analysis. Ask every guest for a review, and ask what they did and enjoyed, not just for a star rating.
- Get written about where AI looks. In one audit of AI answers about hotels, questions about luxury and independent hotels drew on sources such as the Michelin Guide, Travel + Leisure and Town & Country (HotelOperations).
- Make your facts identical everywhere. Room types, facilities, restaurant names, policies and fees should match on your website, your Google Business Profile, booking sites and Tripadvisor. Conflicting details are where AI gets things wrong.
- Check your website to let AI in. Some hotel websites block AI agents and crawlers without anyone deciding to. Ask your web team what is blocked, and why.
- Send Google your own rates. Since 30 September, Google no longer fills in hotel prices from third parties in its hotel results, so a hotel without its own live rate feed can drop out of price comparisons (HotelOperations).
The short version
AI search isn’t yet a booking channel for independent hotels. It is already a shortlist. The hotels that appear on it are the ones AI knows about, can describe accurately, and finds praise from other people.
If you’d like to know where your hotel stands, we run a free AI Visibility Snapshot: 20 real guest questions through ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity, compared with your three closest competitors, on a single page. Request yours at reposition.co.uk