Good day fellow hoteliers and welcome to episode 275 of The Hotel Marketing Podcast by TravelBoom. I’m your host Pete DiMaio… and I’m Mackenzie Livernois and together (along with the team off camera) we’re the Boomsquad.
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Today we’re going to be covering that most likely you don’t know about, GEO. Short for Generative Engine Optimization. We’ve talked about GEO being the death of SEO in the past, and what’s clear is SEO will never be “dead” but it will evolve, and evolve quickly, as technology and users change. So, knowing that 33% of US travelers use GenAI in some form for planning, how can today’s hotelier ensure they remain relevant in search… the answer is GEO.
Newsaroos:
European Hotel Group Challenging Booking.com’s Parity Clause:
More than 10,000 hotels across Europe have joined forces in a class-action lawsuit against Booking.com. The claim? That Booking has been abusing its market power with restrictive ‘best price’ clauses that force hotels to match or beat the OTA’s rates on every other channel — including their own websites. Hoteliers say this practice is crushing their ability to compete, keep rates healthy, and drive direct bookings.
TravelBoom’s Room for Improvement: Fixing Hotel Failures
https://www.reddit.com/r/hotels/comments/1n5utaa/increased_direct_bookings_32_by_fixing_our_tech/
The Main Topic: What Is GEO? And Why Should A Hotelier Care?
What is GEO? If you don’t know, don’t worry, you’re not the only one. GEO is basically the next evolution of SEO. With search engines starting to lose market share to AI tools, the focus for your optimization efforts also need to evolve. We have a full article at travelboommarketing.com/blog/generative-engine-optimization-for-hotels where you can learn more, and today we are going to be dispelling some myths and sharing some specific ways you can ensure your optimization efforts are getting put to good use.
Part 1: What is GEO?
- Alright, let’s settle the score—SEO vs GEO. You’ve probably heard us talk about GEO on this show, but what exactly is it, and how is it different from traditional SEO?
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has always been about one thing: helping your site show up when someone searches for something like ‘hotels near me’ or ‘best beach resorts in Myrtle Beach’. It’s technical. It’s foundational. It’s all about rankings.
- But now? We’re officially in the AI era—and with it comes GEO: Generative Experience Optimization.
- GEO is the strategy that helps your brand show up inside AI-powered search tools and generative engines, like Google’s SGE (Search Generative Experience), Bing Copilot, or even LLM platforms like ChatGPT browsing plugins.
- GEO vs SEO — not about ranking, but about being cited and trusted in AI-generated answers.
- Quick examples from ChatGPT or SGE searches (“best family-friendly resort in Myrtle Beach, sc”).
Part 2: Why GEO Matters for Hoteliers
- On average, every OTA booking costs a hotel 16% commission. GEO allows you to be found before a potential guest ever gets to the traditional search results.
- Article quote: “With GEO, your content can show up directly in AI-generated responses, giving you first-touch visibility.”
- Based on an August 11th TravelPulse survey:
- 33% of U.S. travelers use GenAI in the travel process, compared to 22% in the UK, 19% in France, and 15% in Germany
- Specifically, 19% of U.S. travelers have used GenAI to plan at least one trip, with similar figures in the UK (19%), France (30%), and Germany (16%)
- Another survey by CloudAztra cites 35% of travelers in 2024 have used some form of AI when planning or booking a trip; this rises to over 50% among Millennials and Gen Z.
- Years ago, on episode #87 of this show, we talked about how voice search would do exactly what we are seeing AI do right now.
Part 3: How GEO Works
Traditional SEO is about climbing to the top of a long list of blue links, but generative search has changed the game. AI engines don’t give travelers 10 choices—they often give them one or two trusted answers. This isn’t just about ranking — it’s about becoming the default answer.
- Machine-readable, structured content: making sure your website is technically clean and easy for engines to interpret. The right markup, structured data, and navigation is critical.
- Trust signals: AI engines weigh credibility heavily. Verified reviews, detailed FAQs, first-party data like room descriptions, and policies all of these show that your property is a reliable, authoritative source.
- Semantic markup: Schema and other structured data tools make your content more than just text on a page. They translate your amenities, rates, location, and reviews into a format that engines can parse and present with confidence.
- Real traveler questions: Gen AI engines are looking for the specific answer to specific questions, therefore you want to be as direct and conversational as possible in your content.
- More than just your site: AI Engines look at your overall footprint on the web, not just yoru site. All your listings play a role. In fact your booking engine is proving to be a major source of data. The nature of your engine, with real-time rates, bulleted room descriptions, and property information make it a very authoritative source, that must be optimized.
Part 4: Practical GEO Strategies
Now that we know what GEO is, why it matters, and roughly how it works; let’s talk about some strategies you can use today to optimize your hotel:
- Like always, content is king and GEO success depends on answering both branded (“Hilton Myrtle Beach”) and unbranded/event-driven queries (“family hotels near Charleston marathon route”). Event-driven searches are time sensitive, very high-intent, and ideal locations for AI overviews.
- Test AI engines with prompts about your destination + hotel type to learn where opportunities exist. Most importantly, document your searches and results so you can gauge performance over time.
- Create/update FAQs on your website that directly answer common questions in LLMs. FAQs are highly indexable by AI. Bonus points for making your FAQs very conversational and often updated.
- Ensure your schema markup is correct for rooms, amenities, and reviews. While schema alone won’t make you a GEO Hero, when paired with these other recommendations, you’ll become an authoritative source.
- AI, LLM, Generative Engines, whatever you call them, don’t “see” your website; they use a mix of traditional indexing, third-party datasets, citations, and more. Technical optimization is important, but so is being a member of the broader “community.”
- Becoming a content hub and knowledge leader is a must; create a strong content calendar based on your search data. First-party insights, such as unique articles, reviews, guides, and more, make you valuable to not just AI, but your hotel guests as well…. Which is the ultimate goal!
The Wrap Up
So here’s the bottom line: AI isn’t the future, it’s already here. Travelers are using it right now, and if your hotel isn’t showing up in those answers, you don’t exist. The good news is, GEO levels the playing field. When you focus on answering real traveler questions and making it easy for engines to trust you, you drive more direct bookings, build long-term authority, and lower your acquisition costs. Start small — test prompts, update your FAQs, and become the local expert your guests are already searching for. At the end of the day, GEO isn’t about chasing algorithms, it’s about serving travelers better — and when you do that, you win the search and you win the booking.
And don’t forget — GEO doesn’t replace your other marketing, it enhances it. The best results come when it’s working alongside your SEO, PPC, influencer marketing, and email strategies. Tie it all together, and you’re not just showing up in AI answers, you’re creating a complete guest journey that leads straight to direct bookings.
60 Seconds to Success
If your hotel’s website isn’t answering real traveler questions in plain English, you’re not just missing out on SEO — you’re invisible to Google’s new AI results.
As we talked about today, generative search is obviously changing the game. Instead of searching ‘Myrtle Beach oceanfront hotel,’ travelers now ask, ‘What are the best kid-friendly oceanfront hotels in Myrtle Beach with free breakfast and free parking?’
That’s the kind of natural language question AI platforms are pulling into their featured answers. So if your site doesn’t clearly answer those kinds of questions? You’re not showing up.
Start by building out FAQs on your top pages, use conversational headers, and create content that actually helps people make a decision. Write like you’re talking to a guest at the front desk.
A great starting place is to use tools like ChatGPT to simulate the questions your ideal guest might ask. Then go answer them on your site.
Generative AI doesn’t crawl — it curates. So if your content isn’t human and helpful, it won’t make the cut.
Submit your questions and topic ideas on Twitter to @_travelboom or info@travelboommarketing.com.