Getting Found in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews: Here's How
More and more guests no longer ask Google where to sleep; they ask ChatGPT. Whether you get mentioned in that answer or not determines whether that guest knocks on your door or a competitor's.
The Problem
Say you have 6 rooms in a village in Friesland and you get 72 percent of your bookings via Booking.com. Someone planning a cycling weekend nowadays often doesn't type 5 search words into Google anymore. They type a whole sentence into ChatGPT: "what is a nice B&B in Friesland for a cycling weekend with a dog." And they get an immediate answer with 3 or 4 names in it.
The same thing is happening in Google itself. Above the familiar list of blue links, an AI Overview now increasingly appears: the AI summary block at the top of Google that answers the question in a few sentences and mentions a few businesses in the process. The guest reads that block, sees 3 names, and barely clicks further.
The problem is simple. If you're not in that answer, you don't exist for that guest. Not because your B&B is bad, but because the AI didn't include you in the summary. And unlike with an advertisement, you can't buy a spot here. You earn that spot with the information already out there about you online.
Why this matters now rather than in two years: search behavior is shifting faster than most accommodations update their online presence. A guest who used to type "B&B Friesland" and scroll through ten results themselves now reads one written answer and makes a decision based on the names in it. The list of links fades away below that block. For you, that means the handful of spots in that AI answer have become more valuable than an average position on page 1 used to be. And the accommodations getting their foundation in order now are taking those spots before everyone else realizes what's happening.
The tricky part is that you don't see it happening. Your bookings through Booking keep coming, so it doesn't feel urgent. But the guest who could have found you and got three other names from ChatGPT never books with you and you don't even notice. It's lost revenue with no visible cause.
This is part of a broader shift we've explained separately in AEO and GEO for accommodations: getting found in AI search results. This article is the practical start: how do you make sure ChatGPT and Google mention your accommodation.
The Math
AI doesn't invent recommendations. It reads public sources, weighs them, and picks the accommodations where the information is clearest and most trustworthy. So the question isn't "how do I get into AI," but "do I have the signals in place that AI uses."
Below are the 4 most important signals, and the honest question of whether you have them. Fill this out for your own accommodation.
| Signal AI Uses | What It Is | Do You Have This? |
|---|---|---|
| Business profile | Your Google Business Profile (your free profile page in Google Maps), fully filled in with category, photos, hours, and website | Often half-empty or not updated recently |
| Reviews | Recent, numerous ratings on Google with your responses underneath | Often few and without response |
| Mentions | Other sites writing about you: local tourism sites, cycling route pages, bedandbreakfast sites, regional blogs | Usually only the OTAs, not much else |
| Schema | Schema markup on your site (hidden code that literally tells AI what you are, where you are, and what you offer) | Almost never present on older sites |
If you checked "no" or "half" three or four times, that's exactly why you're not being mentioned. The good news: these are the same signals that improve your local visibility in regular search results. So you do the work just once, for two outcomes.
Important to understand: AI weighs these signals together, not separately. An accommodation with 80 reviews but without a filled-in profile won't make it, and a perfect profile without any reviews won't either. AI looks for the place where all signals together create the clearest, most trustworthy picture. That's good news for a small B&B: you don't have to be the biggest, you have to be the clearest. And clarity costs no advertising budget, just attention.
Action Plan
Work through the signals in order. Start at the top, that delivers the quickest results.
- Make your Google Business Profile complete. Category correct, all fields filled in, recent photos, correct hours, link to your own website. This is the source that both Google and ChatGPT look at first. The full method is in Setting up Google Business for hotels and B&Bs.
- Collect reviews systematically. Don't wait for a happy guest to write spontaneously, ask every guest after they leave. 40 recent reviews with an average of 4.5 stars weigh heavier than 24 old ones. How to set that up without hassle, read in collecting reviews on Google.
- Write clear, factual text on your site. AI prefers short, quotable sentences. Put the facts right there: "B&B with 6 rooms, 20 minutes from Leeuwarden, dogs welcome, free parking." No flowery mood copy, but concrete answers to questions guests actually ask.
- Make sure you get mentions outside the OTAs. A mention on a local cycling route page, a regional blog, or your municipality's tourism site increases the number of places where AI encounters you. The more trusted sources that mention your name, the more certain the AI includes you.
- Add schema markup to your website. This is the technical step. Schema tells AI in a fixed language exactly what you are, where you are, what you offer, and what you cost. A human won't read it, an AI will, and it removes doubt about what kind of business you are. You can often do this through your website builder or a plugin without coding yourself. The explanation and a working example are in schema markup for hotels and the LocalBusiness tag.
The first three steps deliver the most and cost no tech work. Do those first and do them well, before you start on steps 4 and 5. A complete profile with 40 recent reviews beats a perfect schema markup on an empty profile every time.
What you can do today
Open ChatGPT and type the question your ideal guest would ask, for example, "nice B&B in [your region] for a weekend getaway." If you're not mentioned, look at which accommodations are mentioned and check their Google Business Profile. Nine times out of ten they're fuller and better rated than yours. That's where your work starts.
Common Mistakes
- Thinking it requires a separate AI tool. There's no button, subscription, or "AI package" you buy to get into ChatGPT. Anyone trying to sell you that is selling air. The visibility comes from your existing profile, reviews, and site.
- Leaving your Google Business Profile half-empty. This is by far the most missed basic step. A profile without a category, photos, or recent reviews gets skipped by AI outright, even if your accommodation is excellent.
- Collecting reviews once and then stopping. AI factors in recency. 60 reviews with the most recent from 2023 count less than 30 reviews with half from this year. It needs to be an ongoing rhythm.
- Mood copy instead of facts. "A place where time stands still" means nothing to an AI. "6 rooms, breakfast included, 200 meters from the cycling hub" does. Write for the guest who has a concrete question.
- Waiting until you're "big enough." AI doesn't look at your room count. A small, well-documented B&B beats a large but sloppily presented hotel here.
What You Can Do Now
Don't start with the technical work, start with the basics. Making your Google Business Profile complete and collecting reviews systematically shows a difference in just a few weeks, both in regular search results and in AI answers. The schema markup and mentions you build up gradually after that.
Make it a rhythm rather than a one-time action. Set aside half an hour in your calendar once a quarter: type your own guest question again into ChatGPT and Google, see if you're mentioned, and check if your profile still looks right and your reviews are recent. If your offering changes, like adding a themed suite or now welcoming dogs, update that everywhere right away. An AI can only mention you for what it knows about you, and that knowledge gets outdated just as quickly as your profile.
Want to understand why this shift is continuing and what it means for your direct bookings in the long run. Then read the comprehensive article AEO and GEO for accommodations. Want to know how an AI arrives at a recommendation and how you can influence it. Then how your accommodation gets recommended by AI will help.
Visibility in AI doesn't replace your website
When you're mentioned in ChatGPT or an AI Overview and the guest clicks through to your site. If there's no working booking button or clear contact path there, you still lose the booking. Make sure the place you're pointing to actually helps the guest.
Calculate first what you're currently paying in commission and what more direct bookings bring in, you do that in the savings calculator. Would you rather have us set this up for your accommodation instead of figuring it out yourself. We discuss that at marketing for hotels.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make sure ChatGPT mentions my B&B?
What is a Google AI Overview?
Does it cost money to appear in AI answers?
Does this work if I only have 6 rooms?
How do I know if I already appear in AI answers?
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