BrandInsightAI Insights
Travel · a live data story

Hotels,
according to AI

Every week we ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions real UK consumers ask about hotels — and record exactly which brands they put forward. Right now, Premier Inn owns the conversation.

0 AI answers this run · 0 brands named · measured, never estimated

The podium

Premier Inn is the default answer.

Named in 38% of hotels answers, typically in position 1.6. Travelodge follows at 37%, ibis at 22%.

Travelodge
37% of answers
Premier Inn
38% of answers
ibis
22% of answers
The full board

Every brand AI names, ranked.

Visibility is the share of answers naming the brand; citation share is its slice of all brand-owned pages cited; read→cited is how often its pages convert a read into a citation.

#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Premier Inn 38% 1.6 0%
2Travelodge 37% 2.0 18% 25%
3ibis 22% 3.5 0%
4Holiday Inn 8% 2.8 0%
5Holiday Inn Express 8% 3.8 0%
6easyHotel 7% 3.8 0%
7Point A Hotels 5% 4.7 0%
8Hampton by Hilton 5% 5.0 0%
9Z Hotels 3% 3.0 0%
10Bloc Hotels 3% 6.5 0%
11Crowne Plaza 2% 1.0 0%
12citizenM 2% 4.0 0%
13DoubleTree by Hilton 2% 4.0 0%
14Moxy Hotels 2% 6.0 0%
15Alofts 0% 5% 100%
Who AI trusts here

The referees of hotels.

The independent sources AI models cite when answering hotels questions — the places a brand needs to be seen, reviewed and ranked.

reddit.com 5 cites
ricksteves.com 5 cites
bestbookdirect.com 4 cites
booking.com 4 cites
gov.uk 4 cites
shelter.org.uk 4 cites
citizensadvice.org.uk 2 cites
facebook.com 2 cites
findingtheuniverse.com 2 cites
perk.com 2 cites
Read is not cited

Travelodge converts reads into citations.

When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? Travelodge converts 25% of reads. That gap is a content problem, not a visibility problem.

Travelodge · read 4×25%
Full data table
#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Premier Inn38%1.60%
2Travelodge37%2.018%25%
3ibis22%3.50%
4Holiday Inn8%2.80%
5Holiday Inn Express8%3.80%
6easyHotel7%3.80%
7Point A Hotels5%4.70%
8Hampton by Hilton5%5.00%
9Z Hotels3%3.00%
10Bloc Hotels3%6.50%
11Crowne Plaza2%1.00%
12citizenM2%4.00%
13DoubleTree by Hilton2%4.00%
14Moxy Hotels2%6.00%
15Alofts0%5%100%
Which AI you ask

The models do not agree on who leads.

Ask about hotels and the brand you are shown depends on the assistant: Claude → Premier Inn, Gemini → Premier Inn, ChatGPT → Travelodge. Their top-five lists share just 67% of names.

Claude recommends
Premier Inn
named in 35% of its answers
Gemini recommends
Premier Inn
named in 70% of its answers
ChatGPT recommends
Travelodge
named in 10% of its answers

Brands whose visibility swings most between models — the bar per model, widest gap on the right.

Premier Inn 60pp
Travelodge 60pp
ibis 25pp
easyHotel 15pp
Hampton by Hilton 10pp
ClaudeGeminiChatGPT
The data behind this chart
BrandClaudeGeminiChatGPTSpread
Premier Inn35%70%10%60pp
Travelodge30%70%10%60pp
ibis20%35%10%25pp
easyHotel0%15%5%15pp
Hampton by Hilton0%10%5%10pp
Holiday Inn10%10%5%5pp
Holiday Inn Express10%10%5%5pp
Bloc Hotels5%5%0%5pp
Z Hotels5%5%0%5pp
Crowne Plaza5%0%0%5pp
What AI reads here

Editorial carry hotels.

Every page AI opened while answering, classified by what kind of page it is. Editorial supply the most citations; faq convert best — 90% of the ones models opened were actually cited.

Editorial
25 cited · 10 read only
71% of reads cited
How-to guides
24 cited · 10 read only
71% of reads cited
Community threads
11 cited · 14 read only
44% of reads cited
faq
9 cited · 1 read only
90% of reads cited
Product pages
9 cited · 4 read only
69% of reads cited
Listicles
8 cited · 8 read only
50% of reads cited
Other
5 cited · 17 read only
23% of reads cited
Documentation
3 cited · 15 read only
17% of reads cited
The data behind this chart
Page typeCitedRead but not citedConversion
Editorial251071%
How-to guides241071%
Community threads111444%
faq9190%
Product pages9469%
Listicles8850%
Other51723%
Documentation31517%
What gets cited

Answer up front is what separates cited from ignored.

Of the hotels pages models actually opened, how much more often each feature's pages ended up in the cited sources. Answer up front is worth 15 percentage points; hard statistics pages fare 27pp worse. Measured within the read population, so selection can't flatter it.

Answer up front +15pp
Updated this year +11pp
Comparison table +6pp
Named author -5pp
Hard statistics -27pp
The data behind this chart
FeaturePages withCited %Pages withoutCited %Difference
Answer up front9663%9347%+15pp
Updated this year4464%14552%+11pp
Comparison table2560%16454%+6pp
Named author6652%12357%-5pp
Hard statistics4434%14561%-27pp
Citation readiness

Travelodge builds pages AI can quote.

Readiness scores each brand's own pages on the structure models reward — a direct answer up front, tables, hard numbers, named authors, structured data, recency, specifications. Set against how often those pages are actually cited.

BrandReadinessPages citedPages profiled
Travelodge 17 50% 6
Premier Inn 9 72% 18

Readiness is the share of eight measurable structural signals present on a brand's profiled pages. It is a build-quality measure, not a ranking of the brand.

Keep exploring

Nineteen more categories.

This categoryLive Hotels board

Method: 20 unbranded consumer prompts per category, spread across the buying journey, run weekly against ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Read→cited uses Claude and ChatGPT only (Gemini does not separate the two). Correlational observations of model behaviour at the time of the run. Data from the run completed Mon, 31 Aug 2026 10:33:03 GMT.

scroll ↓