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Live · refreshed weeklyUpdated May 18, 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.
HIGHLIGHTS

Named hotels in Rome — Perplexity

Perplexity's top picks specifically in Rome, IT. Pick a different destination above, or clear to see worldwide.

Hotel of the Week
7 mentions
Positano

Most-mentioned hotel by Perplexity this week.

Newcomer
new — 7 mentions
Positano

Wasn't on Perplexity's radar last week. Now it is.

Top 20 hotels by Perplexity mentions — week of May 18, 2026
#HotelCityChainMentionsW/W
2Le SirenusePositano7 7
11Grand Hotel Cavour FlorenceFlorence5 5
83Caruso, A Belmond Hotel, Amalfi CoastRavelloBelmond3 3
133Santa Caterina HotelAmalfi3 3
132Rome Cavalieri, A Waldorf Astoria HotelRomeHilton3 3
115Il San Pietro di PositanoPositano3 3
113Hotel SavoyFlorenceRocco Forte3 3
108Hotel Exe Domus AureaRome3 3
279Hotel TrastevereRome2 2
278Hotel SpadaiFlorence2 2
276Hotel Santa MariaRome2 2
273Hotel Pupetto PositanoPositano2 2
271Hotel Pitti Palace al Ponte VecchioFlorenceB&B Hotels2 2
266Hotel MontemarePositano2 2
257Hotel de Russie, a Rocco Forte hotelRomeRocco Forte2 2
254Hotel Calimala FlorenceFlorence2 2
252Hotel Bernini PalaceFlorence2 2
202Donna Camilla SavelliRome2 2
167Ambasciatori Hotel FlorenceFlorence2 2
462The St. Regis RomeRomeMarriott2 2
SOURCES

Where Perplexity pulls hotel information from

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

Independent Hotel
22.5% (101)
OTA & Aggregator
18.5% (83)
Review Site
18.3% (82)
Other
14.5% (65)
Editorial
8.5% (38)
Chain
6.3% (28)
Community
4.2% (19)
Meta-search
3.8% (17)
Social Channel
2.5% (11)
Hotel Directory
0.9% (4)
Top categories
Independent Hotel
sofitel.accor.com 41% · meininger-hotels.com 30% · palladiumhotelgroup.com 30%
22.5%101
OTA & Aggregator
booking.com 46% · hotels.com 33% · expedia.com 21%
18.5%83
Review Site
tripadvisor.com 43% · tripadvisor.in 29% · tripadvisor.ca 28%
18.3%82
Other
tripadvisor.com.my 56% · journeyera.com 25% · hotelscombined.com.au 19%
14.5%65
Editorial
thehotelguru.com 39% · timeout.com 31% · mrandmrssmith.com 29%
8.5%38
Chain
marriott.com 47% · hilton.com 32% · ihg.com 20%
6.3%28
Community
businesshotels.com 41% · solotravelhotels.com 31% · myboutiquehotel.com 28%
4.2%19
Meta-search
kayak.com 56% · hotelscombined.com 27% · momondo.com 16%
3.8%17
BRANDS

Top hotel parent groups by Perplexity mentionsWorldwide

Each Perplexity 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
1Oberoi915+67%
2Kempinski1525+67%
3Hilton98141+44%
4Wyndham1318+38%
5Radisson2127+29%
Losers
biggest WoW drops
1Shangri-La2516-36%
2Four Seasons6654-18%
#BrandMentionsHotelsW/W
1Marriott257158 14.7%
2Hilton14180 43.9%
3IHG9059 5.9%
4Hyatt8752 2.4%
5Accor7753 6.9%
6Four Seasons5430 18.2%
7Radisson2716 28.6%
8Mandarin Oriental2617 4.0%
9Kempinski259 66.7%
10Taj2211 4.8%
11Minor2013 25.0%
12Langham208· 0%
13Wyndham1814 38.5%
14Peninsula1710 6.3%
15Shangri-La1610 36.0%
16Oberoi155 66.7%
17Sonesta85 166.7%
18Leela83 14.3%
19Rocco Forte73 250.0%
20Belmond73 12.5%
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.

Chain24.2% 88.2%
Independent72.0% 13.1%
Vacation rental0.0%
Unresolved3.8% 28.6%
PROMPTS

The 616 prompts we ask Perplexity 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).

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