What AI search engines look for on an accommodation website

For twenty years, SEO meant one thing: ranking well on Google. The techniques evolved, the algorithms changed, but the question was always the same. How do I show up at the top of the results?

That is shifting. A growing share of users no longer searches on Google when planning a trip: they ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity or Copilot. The query stops being “rural hotels in Sierra de Cazorla” typed into a search box and turns into “I am planning a weekend getaway as a couple to Sierra de Cazorla, recommend a charming rural hotel with good views and breakfast included for under 150 euros a night” dictated to an AI model.

The AI model does not take the user to a list of links. It gives a direct answer with recommendations, normally citing two or three sources. If your accommodation appears as a recommendation, you have won a potential booking. If it does not appear, you do not exist for that user.

This note explains what AI search engines read, what makes them cite your website as a source and which concrete changes get you onto their radar.

How they work, in essence

AI search engines (also called GEO, “Generative Engine Optimization”) do not read websites the way Google does. Google indexes pages to return them as results. AIs ingest the content of websites and use it to answer questions, citing as sources the pages they pulled the information from.

For an AI to cite your site as a source, two things are needed:

The AI has to be able to read your site without friction.
The information it extracts has to be clear, structured and useful for answering the user’s question.

If one of those fails, you do not show up. Let’s go piece by piece.

What the AI has to be able to read

AI search engines use specific crawlers to read websites. Each model has its own: ChatGPT uses GPTBot and ChatGPT-User. Claude uses ClaudeBot, Claude-User and anthropic-ai. Perplexity uses PerplexityBot. Google uses Google-Extended to feed its AI answers, on top of the classic crawler.

If your website blocks these crawlers in the robots.txt file, you do not appear. Many websites do this without knowing it, because their CMS blocks bots by default to keep non-human traffic out.

First check: review your robots.txt (it lives at yourdomain.com/robots.txt) and verify that you explicitly allow these crawlers. If you do not know how, your web team can fix it in five minutes.

Semantic HTML, what makes the biggest difference

An AI reads your site much faster and better when it is well structured in HTML. “Well structured” means very specific things:

A single <h1> per page that states what the page is about.
A clear hierarchy of headings (<h2>, <h3>, <h4>) that organizes the content into sections.
Semantic tags like <header>, <main>, <article>, <section>, <footer> instead of context-free <div>s.
Real lists (<ul>, <ol>) when the content is a list, not paragraphs with dashes.
Structured data (JSON-LD with Schema.org) that explicitly says the page is a Hotel, a Campground, a LocalBusiness or a vacation rental.

A site built with a standard visual CMS, WordPress without theming or Schema plugins, or any platform that spits out “div soup” HTML has a much harder time entering AI answers, even when its content is excellent.

What the AI wants to find on an accommodation website

For your website to be useful as a source, it has to contain exactly what the user is asking about. Most accommodation sites do not: they stop at “charming accommodation surrounded by nature”, which is what the AI can write on its own without citing anyone.

Concrete, verifiable information:

Exact location (not just “in the middle of nature”, but the name of the municipality, the comarca and clear geographic references).
Exact type of accommodation (rural hotel, campground, hostel, vacation rental) and official category if you have one.
Number of units available and their types (rooms, pitches, bungalows).
Specific services (pool, restaurant, parking, pets allowed, accessibility).
General pricing policy (not necessarily exact rates, but a range and season).
Booking and cancellation policy, written in a readable way.

Clear differentiators:

What makes the accommodation special. This is not “charming accommodation”. It is “18th-century restored farmhouse with views of the El Tranco reservoir, a 2,000 m² garden and a hot tub on the main suite’s terrace”. The AI cites the concrete and ignores the generic.

Local context:

What there is to do in the area (trails, restaurants, viewpoints, events).
Real distances to points of interest.
How to get there from nearby airports or train stations.

The more concrete and verifiable your content is, the higher the chance of being cited. An AI is not going to recommend your accommodation as “the best in Sierra de Cazorla” if it cannot find clear evidence of why.

AI-specific files: llms.txt and llms-full.txt

This is a relatively new practice, not yet required, but gaining traction. It consists of publishing two files on your site:

llms.txt: a clean Markdown index that orients the AI about the structure of your site and where each type of content lives.
llms-full.txt: the full content of your site dumped in plain Markdown, without visual elements, scripts or CSS formatting. Pure structured text.

These files are a shortcut: instead of forcing the AI to crawl your whole site to build its answer, you hand it the information in a single download. If the AI finds them, it uses them preferentially.

It is not mandatory and does not appear in the classic SEO manuals, but sites that implement them are getting more citations. This site publishes them at laresgestion.com/llms.txt and llms-full.txt; they are auditable.

Technical performance also counts

A slow site is worse for AI search engines too, not only for humans. Their crawlers have limited time budgets. If your site takes 8 seconds to load, the crawler is likely to leave before reading everything.

For accommodations, the rough targets are:

Load time: under 2 seconds.
Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) in green.
Optimized images in WebP or AVIF, with explicit dimensions.
Zero heavy JavaScript blocking content from loading.

A fast site is also better for humans. Both pull in the same direction.

Typical mistakes on accommodation websites

The most common failures we see:

Generic content: “Welcome to our cozy accommodation surrounded by nature” adds nothing. The AI does not cite it because it could write it on its own.
No Schema.org: the AI knows there is a page, but does not know it is an accommodation, where it is or what it offers.
Information only in images: prices in a PDF image, location only in an interactive map, schedules only in an infographic. The AI does not read images with that reliability.
A “Rooms” page with little information: a nice photo and a paragraph with no concrete data. Not enough.
An empty blog or one with generic content: the AI prefers sources that demonstrate local expertise. A blog with generic articles about “the top 10 rural destinations in Spain” adds nothing. A concrete article about “hiking trails under 5 km from the accommodation” does.

Where to start

If you have an old site and do not know where to start, the reasonable order is:

Check robots.txt: that it does not block AI crawlers. Five minutes.
Review the HTML: a single H1 per page and a clean hierarchy. If not, the template has to be redone.
Implement Schema.org: at minimum, LodgingBusiness schema or the more specific one (Hotel, Hostel, Resort, Campground, depending on the case).
Rewrite generic content: move from “charming accommodation” to concrete, verifiable and differentiated information.
Publish llms.txt and llms-full.txt: especially useful if the site has extensive content.
Optimize performance: optimized images, clean CSS, no blocking JavaScript.

Each one of those steps moves the needle. Doing them all at once on a badly built site is often more cost-effective than patching the current one: redesigning from scratch with judgment.

Closing

What is changing is not SEO, it is the way people search. And the pace of change is fast. Sites that go 18-24 months without adapting are going to lose visibility without understanding why.

The 30 minutes of the initial diagnosis are enough for a first read: what blocks your site has, which changes pay off most in your case and where to start without spending money on a full redesign if it is not warranted. This site meets the public criteria for performance, accessibility and AI readiness described above: it is auditable.

Tags: SEO · AI search engines · web design · direct bookings · GEO