CASE STUDY: Your Hotel Might Be Showing Up in AI Search… But Not the Way You Think

Hooray Agency launched Momentum AiQ in February of this year. The excitement and reception has thrilled us. Within a short period of time we have had all manner of travel companies, hotels and resorts sign on to the answer engine measurement tool. New clients have been a cross-section of boutique urban hotels, full-service resorts and big brand properties.

Within 30 days, the veil of secrecy was lifted off of how AI shows hotel brands and we weren’t just seeing isolated results—we were seeing patterns.

For the first time, we had enough real-world data to definitively answer big questions:

How is AI actually presenting hotels to travelers?

Who does AI trust as the source?

And more importantly…

How can hotels measurably improve their results?

The Moment of Clarity

Using Momentum AiQ, we analyzed hundreds of real traveler prompts across a growing portfolio of properties—from destination resorts to urban luxury hotels.

What we expected was incremental insight. What we found was a fundamental shift. AI isn’t just ranking hotels. It’s interpreting, summarizing, and recommending them—often without relying on the hotel’s own website as the source.

The Problem No One Saw Coming

Many of these properties were already high performers:

• Strong SEO

• Beautiful websites

• Established brand authority

But when we looked at AI-generated answers, a different story emerged:

1. Hotels were being recommended
2. Their amenities and experiences were being described

…but the information was often coming from:

• Third-party travel sites

• Media publications

• Aggregators

In other words: They had visibility—but not ownership.

Connecting the Dots

This is where our years of experience with traditional SEO became critical.

We’ve spent decades understanding how:

• Site structure

• Content hierarchy

• Technical markup

impact how search engines crawl and index content.

What we’re seeing now is that AI systems behave similarly—but with a twist:

They don’t just crawl content. They extract, synthesize, and decide what’s worth citing.

What the Data Started to Reveal

After analyzing ~200 prompts per property, patterns became clear:

1. AI favors structured, direct answers

Hotels with well-developed FAQ systems were far more likely to be cited for:

• Policies

• Amenities

• Logistics

2. AI needs narrative content to recommend you

Properties with strong editorial content (blogs, guides, experiences) showed better performance in:

• Discovery queries

• Destination-based searches

• Experience-driven recommendations

3. Authority still matters—but it’s not enough

Some properties performed well without strong owned content…

…but AI often cited someone else as the source

The Shift: From Visibility to Ownership

This is the most important insight from the research:

You can show up in answers…

…but if your content isn’t structured and discoverable, you won’t be the one AI credits.

What This Means for Hospitality Brands

The brands that are winning in AI right now are doing three things well:

✔ Building structured FAQ systems for direct answers
✔ Creating editorial content that mirrors how people ask questions
✔ Strengthening authority signals beyond their own website

This isn’t a replacement for SEO. It’s the next evolution of it.

Where Momentum AiQ Fits In

Momentum AiQ made this insight possible.

By aggregating real prompt data across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, it gives brands something they’ve never had before:

• A clear view of how AI represents them

• Competitive benchmarking in AI search

• Actionable steps and support to improve visibility and citation

And importantly… It makes this level of analysis accessible without heavy technical lift or cost.

Final Thought

It’s still early and there is time for your hotel to take control of the narrative.

You can make a significant impact in less than 30 days.

One thing is already clear:

If you’re curious how your brand is showing up in AI… Have a quick look using our free testing tool Scorecard.

When you’re ready to get serious about managing how AI talks about your hotel, inquire about pricing and get a demo.