Two different questions under "AI for hotels"

When a hotel or guest house owner types "AI for hotels", they usually mean one of two things. The first is a chat that answers guests on your website. The second is the question of how ChatGPT, Gemini or Google AI can recommend your property. They sound like the same thing, but they are different tasks with different answers. Much disappointment comes from mixing the two up.

What AI can actually do today for a small property

  • It answers repeated questions: check-in time, parking, Wi-Fi, breakfast, where to leave luggage.
  • It helps you write or rewrite text: a room description, a reply to an enquiry, a message before arrival.
  • It translates short texts. A translation is a draft: a native-speaking guest should read it if the text is important.
  • It gathers the details for a request, so you do not ask three times about dates and number of guests.

In each of these cases AI is a helper, not a replacement for the person who is responsible for the property.

Where it goes wrong

AI knows nothing about your property except what you give it. If the data is out of date, the answer will be out of date. If the question is outside the data, a well-configured chat should say that it does not know, not guess. Prices, free rooms, pet rules and anything a guest might take as a promise are especially risky. These things must be written by you, not assumed.

When it must hand over to a person

Every AI chat needs a clear boundary: when the question is not in the approved data, when the guest is unhappy or when it concerns money, health and safety, the conversation must reach a person. For a small property, the simplest option is the reception's phone number written in the reply.

"How do I get ChatGPT to recommend me?": the honest answer

This is where the hype is greatest. Here is what the official Google and OpenAI documentation says.

  • Google says that its AI features need no special markup or special files. According to Google, ordinary SEO and helpful, reliable content written for people remain the foundation for them too. The practical steps are in the guide to being found more easily in Google and AI search.
  • OpenAI describes a separate bot, OAI-SearchBot, for search in ChatGPT, and recommends not blocking it. If you block it, your website will not be shown in the answers of that search, though it can still appear as a navigational link. Allowing access is a precondition, not a promise: Google says that indexing and serving are not guaranteed, and OpenAI recommends allowing the bot so that the site can appear.

An important boundary: these facts describe Google Search and OpenAI's bots, not every AI assistant.

An AI chat's answers can differ every time it is asked, so "position No. 1 in ChatGPT" is hard to guarantee and hard to track precisely. This is a practical observation, not a statement from the documentation.

The boring things remain useful: the important content as plain text, accurate and consistent details everywhere (website, Google, platforms), real photos, clear "from" prices, contact details and up-to-date reviews. Do not buy "guaranteed AI visibility" and do not believe percentages with no stated source and method.

How to choose and protect yourself from the hype

  • Ask where the chat gets its answers from and who edits them.
  • Ask what it does when it does not know.
  • Check whether it promises reservations, payments or results that it cannot prove.
  • Start small: about ten of the most common questions, written well.

Where ISKA Assistant fits

ISKA Assistant answers from the information you have approved for the property. When there is no data, it directs the guest to the property's phone number; there is no live chat. It accepts a room reservation request, which by default a person confirms. It appears in the widget on a website built with ISKA Website, can be embedded in another website and is available as "Ask" in ISKA Guide. Prices are on the pricing page.

The assistant answers the first question, the one about guests. It is not a method to get ChatGPT or Gemini to recommend you and does not promise such a result.