The next wave of guest engagement isn’t about selling — it’s about showing up in the conversation
Oct 31, 2025
OpenAI’s new Instant Checkout feature—letting ChatGPT users make purchases directly inside the chat—signals a shift that should make every hotel marketer pay attention. The age of banner ads and pop-ups is over. The next frontier of digital visibility is conversation itself. And in this new landscape, the winners won’t be the loudest brands, but the most relevant ones.
Key takeaways
- From selling to participating: The next wave of hotel marketing isn’t about pushing offers — it’s about showing up naturally in conversations that matter, with context, timing, and trust.
- Conversational visibility: Guests will increasingly discover, compare, and even book hotels through AI chat interfaces like ChatGPT or Google Gemini — without ever visiting a website.
- Trust as currency: In a conversational environment, intrusive selling breaks the spell. Guests expect guidance, not persuasion. Relevance replaces reach as the metric that matters.
- The new distribution layer: Platforms like ChatGPT could soon connect directly with booking systems, offering real-time rates, availability, and personalized recommendations. But only brands that are structured for AI visibility will appear.
- Authenticity wins: Hotels that communicate with clarity, transparency, and human tone — answering questions, not forcing messages — will stand out in an AI-curated world.
From brochures to conversations
Traditional hotel marketing has always been about presence — being seen in the right places: Google, OTAs, social media. But the discovery journey is changing. A traveler might ask ChatGPT “Where should I stay in Paris for a romantic weekend?” and instantly receive curated hotel recommendations. If your hotel isn’t part of that dialogue, it’s invisible — no matter how beautiful your website is.
To show up in these conversations, hotels must rethink visibility itself. It’s not about keyword bidding or banner placement anymore. It’s about making your property intelligible to AI — structured data, consistent messaging, clear positioning, and authentic storytelling that an algorithm can understand and trust.
Building trust, not transactions
In this new ecosystem, every answer a guest receives is a moment of trust. If ChatGPT or another AI assistant suggests your property, that suggestion carries weight — it feels personal, not promotional. But that same trust is fragile. Overly commercial messages or exaggerated claims will feel out of place in a conversational context.
The new rule is simple: participate, don’t promote. Offer clarity, not clutter. Think of your brand as part of an ongoing dialogue about travel inspiration, not a pop-up interrupting it.
Preparing for the conversational future
Hotels that want to thrive in this environment can start now:
- Structure data for AI – Make sure descriptions, amenities, and reviews are clean, verified, and machine-readable.
- Embrace transparency – Eliminate marketing jargon. Write as if explaining to a guest, not selling to one.
- Align teams around dialogue – From revenue to marketing, think about how your hotel “speaks” in digital conversations.
- Experiment early – Watch how travelers interact with ChatGPT, Google, or Booking.com assistants — and test your own content in these contexts.
The future of hotel marketing won’t be about louder campaigns or flashier ads. It will be about being present — quietly, intelligently, and authentically — in the spaces where decisions are made.
by Markus Busch, Editor/Publisher Hospitality.today
