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Live · refreshed weeklyUpdated August 17, 2026

AI Hotel Landscape

How leading AI assistants recommend hotels — 616 prompts across 56 destinations, refreshed every Monday.

Data is directional. Some prompts retry due to upstream variance, so absolute counts can shift ±5% week to week.
PROMPTS

The 616 prompts we ask Google AI Mode every week

56 destinations × 11 templates. Each prompt has structured dimensions: city, country, region, persona (couples / families / solo / business), budget (luxury / mid / budget), and location zoom (wide city vs neighborhood vs landmark). Control prompts are unmodified baselines.

Prompts / week
616
across 6 platforms
Destinations
56
distinct cities
Countries
37
dest country
Regions
5
continental groupings
56 destinations across 37 countrieseuropeamericasasiaafricaoceania
Template patterns

Every destination below gets the same 11 question types — just with the city name swapped in. That's how 56 destinations × 11 templates = 616 prompts per platform per week.

  • luxury hotels in <city>
  • family friendly hotels in <city>
  • hotels in <city> with rooftop pool
  • hotels near <neighborhood>, <city>
  • boutique hotels in <neighborhood>, <city>
  • best hotels in <city> for solo travelers
  • best hotels in <city>
  • affordable hotels in <city> under $200
  • best hotels in <city> for couples
  • best hotels in <city> for business travelers
  • best hotels in <neighborhood>, <city>
  • hotels near <city> National Park
africa4 destinations · 44 prompts

Each destination is asked the 11 prompt patterns above (11 prompts × 4 cities = 44 prompts in this region).

americas14 destinations · 154 prompts

Each destination is asked the 11 prompt patterns above (11 prompts × 14 cities = 154 prompts in this region).

asia16 destinations · 176 prompts

Each destination is asked the 11 prompt patterns above (11 prompts × 16 cities = 176 prompts in this region).

europe17 destinations · 187 prompts

Each destination is asked the 11 prompt patterns above (11 prompts × 17 cities = 187 prompts in this region).

oceania5 destinations · 55 prompts

Each destination is asked the 11 prompt patterns above (11 prompts × 5 cities = 55 prompts in this region).

HIGHLIGHTS

Named hotels in Vienna — Google AI Mode

Google AI Mode's top picks specifically in Vienna, AT. Pick a different destination above, or clear to see worldwide.

Hotel of the Week
4 mentions
Vienna

Most-mentioned hotel by Google AI Mode this week.

SOURCES

Where Google AI Mode pulls hotel information from

Every URL Google AI Mode retrieved classified into 12 buckets: OTAs, editorial, chain sites, direct hotel pages, social, meta-search, AI tools, community, government, directory consortia, and other.

299 sources retrieved
55 actually cited
=
18.4% citation throughput
Full throughput study →
Meta-search
71.2% (213)
OTA & Aggregator
6.4% (19)
Other
4.7% (14)
Editorial
4.0% (12)
Social Channel
2.7% (8)
Review Site
2.7% (8)
Government / DMO
2.0% (6)
Community
2.0% (6)
Independent Hotel
1.7% (5)
Chain
1.7% (5)
Hotel Directory
0.7% (2)
AI Tool
0.3% (1)
Top categories
Meta-search
google.com 100% · kayak.com 0% · trivago.com 0%
71.2%213
OTA & Aggregator
expedia.com 40% · booking.com 31% · agoda.com 30%
6.4%19
Other
foratravel.com 44% · secretplaces.com 32% · akbartravels.com 24%
4.7%14
Editorial
cntraveler.com 41% · thehotelguru.com 37% · forbestravelguide.com 22%
4.0%12
Social Channel
youtube.com 54% · reddit.com 25% · facebook.com 21%
2.7%8
Review Site
tripadvisor.com 93% · tripadvisor.co.uk 4% · oyster.com 3%
2.7%8
Government / DMO
neworleans.com 43% · discoverzermatt.com 30% · myswitzerland.com 26%
2.0%6
Community
myboutiquehotel.com 46% · santorinidave.com 36% · therooftopguide.com 19%
2.0%6
Independent Hotel
scottdunn.com 50% · cordishotels.com 25% · meritelhanoi.com 25%
1.7%5
Chain
marriott.com 37% · all.accor.com 35% · fourseasons.com 28%
1.7%5
Hotel Directory
designhotels.com 49% · hotelsforkings.com 25% · slh.com 25%
0.7%2
AI Tool
staygenie.app 100%
0.3%1
BRANDS

Top hotel parent groups by Google AI Mode mentionsWorldwide

Each Google AI Mode mention matched against Google Places, then rolled up to parent group (Marriott = Ritz-Carlton + Westin + Sheraton + EDITION + …, etc.). WoW delta vs last week. Detection via 175+ brand-domain rules.

Gainers
biggest WoW jumps
11 Hotels410+150%
2Langham2225+14%
3Minor2325+9%
4Belmond1314+8%
Losers
biggest WoW drops
1Rosewood1813-28%
2Shangri-La2520-20%
3Kempinski2420-17%
4Taj2320-13%
5Hyatt8576-11%
#BrandMentionsHotelsW/W
1Marriott210128 2.8%
2Accor10065 4.8%
3Hilton9561 2.2%
4Four Seasons8036 1.3%
5Hyatt7647 10.6%
6IHG6843 2.9%
7Mandarin Oriental3715· 0%
8Radisson2715 3.6%
9Minor2516 8.7%
10Langham258 13.6%
11Taj208 13.0%
12Kempinski208 16.7%
13Shangri-La2013 20.0%
14Belmond143 7.7%
15Capella146· 0%
16Rosewood137 27.8%
17Peninsula136· 0%
18Oberoi124· 0%
191 Hotels105 150.0%
20Wyndham75· 0%
Chain vs Independent

Of the hotels named this week: how many resolved to a chain (Marriott / Accor / …), an independent property, a vacation rental, or stayed unmatched.

Chain39.1% 50.0%
Independent58.7% 12.9%
Vacation rental0.0%
Unresolved2.2%· 0%
DEFINITIONS

What every metric means

Plain-English definitions for each number on this page. For deeper visuals + examples, see the annual landscape report linked at the bottom.

Captures
Number of AI responses we collected this week. Target = 616 per platform (one per prompt). Less when there are upstream errors.
Web search
Did the response trigger a live web fetch? Detected from the underlying response stream’s search-result events, not the unreliable top-level flag. We do NOT force web search — this is organic model behavior.
Map widget
Did the response render a hotel-card map (the Google-Maps-style widget ChatGPT shows for travel queries)? Each card is a "map entity" with its own provider.
Sponsored placements
Paid sponsor placements. Detected from real single-advertiser ad units in the response stream. Excludes ChatGPT’s organic shopping cards (which are unpaid product carousels). US/AU/NZ/CA only as of May 2026.
Sources / response
Distinct URLs the model consulted while answering — the URLs that show up in its retrieval log, regardless of whether it cited them inline. Computed only over web-search responses (otherwise the answer is from training data, no sources to count).
Citations / response
Subset of sources that the model rendered as inline footnote pills in the answer. A source becomes a citation when the model explicitly references it.
Fanouts / response
Number of sub-queries the model spun up internally to answer the prompt (e.g. "best hotels Paris" might fan out to "hotels Paris Marais", "luxury hotels Paris", "rooftop hotels Paris", …).
Map entities / response
Hotel cards inside the map widget. Each carries a provider (Google Places, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Foursquare, SERP) and a place ID where applicable.
OTA
Online travel agency (Booking, Expedia, Hotels.com, Agoda, Trip.com, Priceline, etc.) — commission-based booking sites.
Direct
A hotel’s own website. Computed at request time by matching the cited domain against Google Places.
Chain
A hotel chain’s brand website (hilton.com, marriott.com, ihg.com, …). 175+ chain-domain rules.
Editorial
Travel media (Condé Nast Traveler, Time Out, Lonely Planet, Forbes Travel Guide, NYT, etc.) and city-specific travel blogs (santorinidave.com, theurbanlist.com, etc.).
Directory
Multi-property hotel consortia / brand collectives (Small Luxury Hotels of the World, Design Hotels, Preferred Hotels, Virtuoso, …). Aggregate hotels under one umbrella but aren’t a single OTA.
Review
TripAdvisor, Oyster, Yelp, Trustpilot, Holidaycheck — review-first platforms.
Want a deeper read? See the in-depth annual report