Google has long made it clear that it doesn’t want to just help users search – it wants to help them find answers. Its latest round of updates in Search and Maps, powered by generative AI, further help to fulfil Google's aim of giving users what they want with as little friction as possible. This evolution has major implications for how travellers plan trips and, in turn, how hotels are discovered, compared, and chosen.
To make sense of it all, we sat down with Pete Stevens, Head of Marketing and Operations at Clockwork Marketing, to talk through what Google’s new AI tools mean for hospitality marketing. We discussed what hoteliers should be doing today to stay visible and competitive, and why the fundamentals of good marketing remain as important as ever.
Generative vs Predictive AI
Predictive AI analyses existing data to make forecasts or decisions. For example, predicting hotel demand or pricing trends.
Generative AI creates new content based on patterns in data. It can do things like write a travel itinerary or summarise guest reviews in natural language.
What Google is Rolling Out
While the tools are still in phased rollouts and may not yet be visible to all users, Google’s direction is clear. Pete outlined three major developments that hoteliers need to be aware of:
1. AI-Powered Itinerary Planning
Searches like “What should I do for a week in Malaga?” can now yield detailed, day-by-day itineraries pulled from multiple sources across the web. “You've probably seen Google's AI answering service already,” explains Pete, “but now it's starting to pull together itineraries, if you ask it in the right way... It'll give you a day-by-day breakdown of the top things to do.”
These AI-generated responses synthesise content from a wide array of sites — media, tourism boards, OTAs, blogs — to create a coherent, structured answer.
This is a significant shift from Google’s traditional format, where a user had to click through to several individual results to build a plan. Instead, the AI now curates a unified view making it harder for any one hotel to stand out organically.
“Historically, Google gave you one answer at a time. Now, it’s scraping from all over and putting the pieces together,” Pete explained. If your hotel’s story isn’t well represented in the sources the AI draws from, you risk being left out.
2. Conversational Refinement via Generative AI
Travel planning no longer means a series of static Google searches. Using Gemini, travellers can now refine their itineraries in a conversational way. Travellers can adjust their preferences and priorities mid-search — a fundamental shift from the traditional model of one-query, one-result. Pete noted:
“You might go, 'Oh, actually, I’m taking my kids, so these first three days aren’t any good for me. What am I going to do with preschool kids or teenage kids?'... You can just start refining it and interrogating it and having a conversation.”
This opens the door for more personalised recommendations, but also means that Gemini needs to be able to find content that is rich, diverse, and relevant to a wide variety of user intents.
To be discovered, hotels need to create content that answers layered and situational questions, not just static search queries. For example, a list of 'family-friendly things to do within 5 miles of the hotel' could become far more relevant than a general attractions page.
3. Hotel Price Tracking
Many hoteliers will be uneasy with Google’s expansion of its price tracking tools (familiar from Google Flights) into hotel listings. Travellers can use the feature to monitor fluctuations in hotel prices and receive alerts when deals become available.
This increased price transparency may pressure hotels, particularly independents, to compete more aggressively on cost. Pete cautioned that for many boutique or premium properties, this trend could dilute their value proposition. “It's just all about price, not about the fantastic staff, service, location, furnishings, or experience. It's just a race to the bottom," he warned.
While dynamic pricing is a common tactic in hospitality, Pete also noted the risk of conditioning consumers to wait for deals, or worse, undermining brand value by appearing inconsistent or undesirable.
What Does This Mean for Your Hotel’s Discoverability?
One of the major implications of these updates is that a hotel can be included in the data Google scrapes but still not own any of the customer journey. Pete observed that in early tests of AI search results, brand websites often weren’t the ones being linked to.
"The top three I clicked on are all linking off to sites like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Times, Hotel Guru, Booking.com, none of them are to brand.com," noted Pete, after testing several generative queries for hotels in Malaga and London.
That raises important strategic questions: how can independent hotels compete in a landscape where high-authority platforms may carry more algorithmic weight than their own websites?
Hotel marketers will need to act diligently across multiple fronts: ensuring their own content is outstanding, building relationships with trusted third-party sources, and managing their presence on OTAs and aggregator sites carefully. Strong storytelling on your own website remains vital, but increasingly, your visibility will also depend on being featured and cited in the right places elsewhere online.
The goal isn’t just to exist in Google's ecosystem — it’s to be recommended within it.
What Hotels Can (and Should) Do Now
Despite the dramatic shift in interface, Pete’s advice wasn’t to panic or chase the latest gimmick, pointing out that organic search traffic is still dominant:
"We see typically around 70% of visitors to a hotel website coming from Google search... so ranking for all the key phrases that you might need to rank for, depending on your business, is absolutely essential."
To improve your hotel’s discoverability, Pete advocated for continued adherence to the core principles of hotel marketing, but adapting them for an AI-influenced world.
1. Double Down on Human-Centric, High-Quality Content
Although generative AI like Google's can craft original summaries or rewrite content in new ways, Google’s AI tools don’t generate entirely new information. They aggregate and interpret what already exists. That means the content you publish (blog posts, landing pages, FAQs, image metadata) needs to be accurate, helpful, and designed with real guest intent in mind.
You’re going to be looking for long, descriptive, natural language type of key phrases, like ‘What can I do with my children when I'm on holiday in Cornwall and it's raining?’
Creating content that answers these kinds of questions not only meets the needs of real guests, but also makes it easier for AI tools to identify your hotel as relevant to specific types of travellers.
Keyword stuffing won't trick an AI, and it will irritate a human. Natural language, storytelling, and detail matter more than ever.
2. Optimise for Search in All Its Forms
Technical SEO basics like page titles, site structures, internal links, and site speed still matter. But Pete highlighted one area in particular that often gets overlooked: visual search.
He explained that image optimisation plays a more important role than many hoteliers realise, especially when travellers are still in the inspiration phase of their planning.
"That's where your image titles and alt tags are super important," said Pete. "Rather than having the raw name off the camera and no alt tag. So, every image should be clearly and accurately described."
This means renaming your images to describe what's pictured, adding alt text that’s helpful for both search engines and accessibility, and making sure visuals align with the experience your hotel offers. Done well, these small technical details can help your property appear in Google Images or surface in AI-driven content recommendations.
3. Make Your Differentiators Obvious
AI can’t promote what it can’t understand. Hotels often undersell their most appealing features, either by assuming they’re obvious or by obscuring them in generic copy. "So many hotels have a great story – about the building, the people, the setting – but they bury it," said Pete.
Read this writer's guide to great hotel website copy
To stand out, hotels need to clearly articulate what makes them different; not just once, but consistently across their website, listings, and content. Whether it’s a historic building, a sustainability ethos, or being family-friendly, those attributes should be spelt out with the kind of detail that AI tools (and guests) can easily recognise and understand.
Pete’s advice suggests that this isn’t just about branding — it’s about clarity. A website that confidently explains its niche is more likely to be surfaced by Google’s AI when travellers search for experiences aligned with specific values or preferences.
It’s not enough to vaguely suggest that you’re unique. If you’re family-friendly, say so explicitly — and give examples. If you offer farm-to-table dining, showcase your suppliers and your chef’s philosophy. If your hotel is known for its wellness offering or dog-friendly service, make sure those pages are easily accessible and richly detailed.
In short: if you don’t articulate your niche, the algorithm won’t guess it for you, and your ideal guests may never know you’re exactly what they’re looking for.
4. Lean Into Reviews and User-Generated Content
Perhaps one of the most significant changes is that AI tools have the ability to draw on third-party content, especially reviews. These candid guest impressions help the algorithm understand who your property is for.
“User-generated content is certainly going to be key,” Pete predicted. “If families are mentioned positively [in reviews], it's pushing that content higher up for people that are looking for family stays.”
To make the most of this, hoteliers should aim to encourage and highlight the types of reviews that align with their target audience.
Take a look at this online guide to reputation management for hoteliers
5. Personalisation Is Coming, So Play to Your Strengths
While Google hasn’t yet fully rolled out user-specific recommendations, the signs are there. If a user searches for “top schools in Plymouth,” then searches for hotels in London, it’s not a stretch to imagine that AI will infer the user is likely travelling with children, and prioritise family-oriented options.
That kind of personalisation isn’t something you can game, but it does underline the importance of leaning into your niche. "You can only describe what you are”, asserts Pete. “If you do cater for families, then you want to make sure you massively cover that in your content."
Hotels that clearly signal their strengths – whether that's family-friendliness, culinary excellence, wellness retreats, or adventure travel – are more likely to surface when AI matches travellers with experiences that suit their interests.
Practical steps include creating dedicated landing pages for key guest segments (e.g., 'Family Adventures in Cornwall'), publishing detailed blog posts that answer specific guest questions, and gathering guest reviews that reflect the themes you want to be associated with. The clearer and more consistent your story, the more likely AI is to recognise and amplify it.
The Bigger Picture: PR and External Authority Matter Again
In a world where Google draws from a mosaic of sources, your online presence needs to extend beyond your website. Editorial features, listicles, blogs, and even influencer write-ups are feeding the AI’s sense of what your hotel is, who it’s for, and whether it’s credible.
"It doesn’t seem to be pulling much content from Facebook and Instagram,” noted Pete. “But influencers can still blog and do other content. So yeah, definitely PR... because again, you're in control of that."
Unlike traditional PR, which was often focused on prestige or brand awareness, this new wave of digital visibility is functional. These external signals feed directly into how AI understands your property, and whether you're recommended when a user asks for the “best boutique spa in Devon with dog-friendly rooms”.
Influencer campaigns, content partnerships, and media coverage now carry even more weight, not just with people, but with the platforms they use.
Final Word: tools change, people don’t
It’s easy to get distracted by shiny new tools, but Pete’s most enduring point was this: The way people plan travel may evolve, but what they want from travel doesn’t.
People still want meaningful experiences, useful information, trustworthy recommendations, and a sense of what your property feels like. And if your content delivers that – honestly, clearly, and consistently – you’ll be well-positioned, whether the answer comes from a search result, an AI assistant, or a word-of-mouth recommendation.
What does Pete recommend? "Just really great content... human-first content, content that’s rich and gives descriptions and feelings and what your business is like."
AI will continue to evolve. But hospitality is still about people, stories, and service – things no algorithm can replace.
About Clockwork Marketing
Clockwork Marketing are hospitality marketing specialists with over 30 years of experience in the industry. They're more than a hotel marketing agency; they're growth specialists and hospitality experts who understand your business from the inside out. This unique perspective gives your branding and campaigns a competitive edge. Think of them as your bolt-on marketing department. They take away your marketing stress, so you have one less thing to worry about. Through emotive creativity and deep insights, Clockwork brings your guest experience to life. Bold and bright, dealing in green fields and blue oceans, indulgence and rest — setting your business at the heart of desirable travel and profitable growth.
