Nicolas Sitter
AGENTIC|

What AI searches when asked for hotels in Cape Town

Before answering a hotel question with web search, an AI assistant rewrites it into one or more searches. These are the searches it actually ran for 11 traveller prompts about Cape Town, captured week after week, not autocomplete suggestions.

ChatGPT
196
answers, 1.3 searches each, May 2026 to Nov 2026

Explore by prompt

Percentages are shares of answers. Grok and Gemini were captured on an earlier prompt set, so most current prompts only have ChatGPT.

Best hotels
Luxury
Budget
Families
Couples
Business
Solo
Amenity
Neighbourhood or landmark
Prompt
“best hotels in Cape Town”
Answers captured
18
Searches per answer
1.2
Searched the prompt as written
11%
Captured
4 May 2026 to 2 Nov 2026

The searches ChatGPT ran

Most frequent first. “×3” means the same search appeared in three separate answers.

  1. best hotels Cape Town luxury×4
  2. best hotels in Cape Town South Africa 2026 luxury boutique waterfront Camps Bay reviews×2
  3. best hotels in Cape Town luxury boutique×2
  4. best hotels in Cape Town luxury hotels Cape Town×2
  5. best hotels in Cape Town South Africa 2026 luxury boutique family reviews×1
  6. best hotels Cape Town luxury 2026×1
  7. best luxury hotels Cape Town South Africa×1
  8. best hotels×1
  9. best hotels Cape Town×1
  10. best hotels in Cape Town×1
  11. best hotels Cape Town luxury hotels Cape Town top rated hotels Cape Town Waterfront V&A hotels Cape Town×1
  12. Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel Cape Town address official website×1
  13. The Silo Hotel Cape Town address official website×1
  14. One&Only Cape Town address official website×1
  15. best hotels Cape Town luxury boutique Cape Town hotels×1

Words it added to the prompt

luxury83%boutique33%202622%africa22%south22%reviews17%waterfront17%bay11%camps11%address6%belmond6%family6%mount6%nelson6%official6%one6%only6%rated6%silo6%top6%

Places and names it added

South22%Camps Bay11%

Hotel topics in what it added

All Cape Town prompts together

Share of answers whose searches added each topic, counting only words that were not already in the prompt.

What a Cape Town hotel page can cover

The topics ChatGPT adds most often here, with what a page can do about each. These are editorial suggestions drawn from the searches, not a measured ranking effect.

  1. A year22% of answers

    Say what is current: this year’s renovations, prices and openings, with dates on the page.

  2. Best / top22% of answers

    The engine is looking for lists. Being on the editorial and booking-site lists matters as much as your own page.

  3. Hotel class or style21% of answers

    State your class and style plainly (five-star, boutique, historic) in text and in schema.

  4. Neighbourhood and location16% of answers

    Name your neighbourhood and what is walkable from it, in words, not only on a map.

  5. Country name12% of answers

    Write the city and country together at least once. Engines disambiguate with the country.

Which hotels get named? The answers behind these searches are tracked in the AI Hotel Landscape for Cape Town.

How the searches were captured and cleaned, and what is left out: method and limits. ChatGPT data runs to Nov 2026.