Stand Out or Fade Away: Rethinking Hotel Search and Distribution in the Agentic Era

By: Timothy Wiersma - President and CEO, Revenue Generation and RG Venture Studio

Recently, I was planning a vacation to Portugal. Not having the time necessary to sift through endless options and reviews, I found myself looking to my travel companions Chat GPT and Perplexity to do some of the research and help me build just the right experience that allowed my wife and I to focus on the experiences that mattered to us.

It’s both exciting and scary to contemplate the sources AI uses to come up with its recommendations for the “perfect vacation” AI travel planners analyze past travel behavior, preferences, and even social media activity to suggest unique destinations, hotels, and activities tailored to an individual's interests. AI algorithms organize routes for optimal time and cost efficiency, saving users hours of research and indecision. They automatically find the best deals, apply discounts, and recommend cost-effective options, helping travelers get more value from their vacation budget.

Can we get the 800 lb. monkey off our back?

According to a recent Accenture survey of 18,000 consumers across 14 countries, 80 percent of travelers are using AI tools for travel purposes, and over half are willing to let AI fully manage their travel planning and bookings.

Accenture found that 81% of travelers want immersive experiences during the research and discovery phase, while 79% want a brand that “makes them feel special” by remembering them personally. Brands that provide these emotionally engaging experiences also see higher engagement, with travelers also more willing to accept a higher price from them.

Once again, we stand at a crossroads: either allow online travel agents (OTAs) to define this future for us and continue paying the price for access to our own guests or seize this opportunity to lead. We need to ensure that when travelers turn to AI for guidance, it is our story, our value, and our experience that comes first. As an industry we have been talking about reliance on OTA’s for over 20 years and for the first time in a long time we have an opportunity to change the narrative.

Rewriting the Rules: How Hotels Win in an AI-Driven Marketplace

As we think about distribution and marketing priorities, integrating AI is not only urgent but no longer an option. The main goal here is to make marketing and distribution strategies more personalized, real-time, and conversational. Hotels that rely on static contracts and a few OTA’s are at risk of being overlooked by an ever-growing audience that will increase their reliance on AI agents to do ensure they get the best experience and rate.

The key difference lies in the audience: traditional hotel marketing speaks to people, while AI-era hotel marketing speaks to the machines that decide for them. With this in mind let’s explore how successful hotels, resorts, and travel partners are adjusting and rewriting the rules of the game.

1. Shift Audience Focus: From People to Machines

Traditional marketing has focused on persuading people—through ads, branding, promotions, and awareness campaigns. In the AI era, the audience shifts. Our marketing must persuade machines: AI travel agents, voice assistants, and recommendation engines.

Winning in this environment requires:

• Optimized Content – structured, machine-readable, and consistent across channels.

• Dynamic Pricing – flexible, transparent, and attractive to algorithmic decision-making.

• Strong Reputation Signals – verified reviews, trust marks, and credibility that algorithms can weigh.

The new competitive advantage is not just visibility to people, but favorability with machines that decide what people see.

2. Data-Rich and Structured Content

Machines run on structure, not guesswork. AI engines don’t want to interpret messy content; they look first for structured data in standardized schemas. Think of schemas as a universal dictionary: a consistent format that lets machines instantly find and trust your information. If your hotel isn’t using structured schemas, you risk being invisible. AI won’t waste time deciphering your site when faster, clearer sources exist. Speed and clarity now decide who gets recommended.

3. Make your Site and Channels Trustworthy

Machines, like customers, weigh reviews, consistency and reliability more than marketing copy. Customers want to ensure that what a property claims is verified in reviews. AI will ensure that there is accuracy across all channels. The action here is ensuring you invest in verified reviews and invest in certifications such as sustainability, safety, and inclusivity to lend credibility to your market message.

4. Make Your Offers Dynamic and Personalized

AI engines don’t just want to know your property, they want to know the traveler: their preferences, priorities, and budget. To win, we must rethink pricing models. That means offering flexible rates, customizable add-ons, and package options designed for machines to assemble personalized itineraries that feel tailor-made for each guest.

5. API-First Distribution

API’s (Application Programming Interface) allows AI engines to check availability in real-time, pull pricing and room details, instantly make a booking, and access other pertinent information such as reviews and amenities. Without these interfaces AI engines will attempt to scrape information off websites which are slower and error prone.

6. Relevant Content that Answers Intent-rich Queries

Relevant content answers specific traveler questions clearly, credibly, and in a structured way, so AI engines can quickly recommend your property to the right guest. We need to take the time to understand customer intent, then map those queries to specific content that answers the questions they have. This may involve enhancing existing pages or creating new, structured, machine-readable content. Finally, we should incorporate keywords and phrases that reflect intent to ensure both travelers and AI engines find us.

The rise of AI in travel is reshaping how hotels, resorts, and travel partners engage with guests. Travelers increasingly rely on AI tools to plan personalized vacations, and AI engines now evaluate properties based on structured data, reviews, credibility, and alignment with individual preferences.

Traditional marketing, which targets people through ads and promotions, must evolve to persuade machines that curate experiences on travelers’ behalf. To succeed, hotels must create structured, machine-readable content, maintain strong reputation signals, offer dynamic pricing and personalized packages, and enable API-first distribution.

By understanding customer intent and answering specific queries with relevant content, properties can ensure they are favored by AI systems, reclaiming control over guest relationships in an increasingly automated, agentic marketplace.

By the way, AI helped me with my travel research, but I also found many other really good options that I incorporated into our itinerary to Portugal highlighting the fact that we, as an industry, have more work to do to adopt and stay competitive in this new and rapidly evolving era.

Stay visible, speak the language that AI can understand, and get ready to take back direct booking dominance.