Your next guest is asking ChatGPT where to stay

Hey, how are you? It's Gonzalo.

This week I've got three things for you: one that's going to hit you sooner than you think, a mistake I made with AI, and a question from a hotelier that's useful for everyone. Let's go.

I translate the news 📰

Your next guest is asking ChatGPT where to stay.

The thing I keep seeing in every tourism report this 2026: people stopped starting their search on Google. Now they ask ChatGPT, Gemini or other AI directly, "recommend me a hotel in this city for this." More than half of travelers already plan this way, and among the younger ones it's the norm.

What's interesting is how the AI answers. When someone asks it for a recommendation, it doesn't make things up: it builds its answer from your online reputation, your reviews and your hotel's public information. In other words, AI became a new recommender, and you don't control what it says about you… but you can influence it.

What does it mean for your hotel, in 1 minute?

• You showed up in a conversation you can't see. There are people deciding where to sleep based on what an AI tells them, without you even knowing. If your hotel doesn't show up, or shows up with old information, you lose bookings before the guest even knows you exist.
• Your online reputation is now your visibility in AI. The reviews, your replies to those reviews and clear info about your hotel (location, services, who it's for) are what the AI "reads" to recommend you. Taking care of your reputation stopped being just for Google: it's for the AI that's recommending in your name today.

😉 A friendly warning: AI sometimes gets specific details wrong (prices, hours, availability). One more reason for your public information to be spotless and up to date.

👉 Here's an action for you to do this week: go into ChatGPT and ask "recommend me a hotel in [your city] for [a couple / a business trip / a family]." See if you show up, what it says about you and whether it's right. What you see will surprise you —for better or worse— and that's exactly where you need to work.

The Lab 🧪

I pretended to be a guest on a honeymoon (and the chatbot ruined the moment)

This week I ran an experiment. I went into the WhatsApp of a hotel that doesn't use We Speak —a nice one, the kind for a special occasion— and I pretended to be someone planning their honeymoon. I wanted to see, from the guest's side, what booking feels like today.

I wrote something like: "Hi, we're looking for a place for our honeymoon in June, we want it to be unforgettable. What do you recommend?"

The answer came super fast. In seconds. And it said, give or take a word: "Hi. We have rooms available from $X a night. Want to book?"

I froze. I told them it was my honeymoon —the most emotional decision a guest can make— and the bot threw a rate at me as if I were asking about a parking spot. Fast, correct, and completely deaf to the moment.

I wouldn't book. Obviously not.

And there's the problem I see in almost every chatbot on the market: they confuse speed with selling. They're so proud of answering in 3 seconds that they forget the only thing that matters: answering fast is not the same as selling. An emotional purchase doesn't close with a quick number; it closes when the guest feels that on the other side someone understood why they're booking.

A bot that only fires off rates isn't a salesperson. It's a calculator with good manners.

What I take away, and leave with you:

• Check what your hotel replies to an emotionally charged inquiry (a honeymoon, an anniversary, a dream trip). If the answer is only price and availability, you're losing exactly the bookings that are worth the most.
• Speed solves friction (so nobody's left waiting). The sale is solved by judgment: reading the guest's moment and answering up to par. They're two different things, and both matter.
• Technology has to give you speed without taking the soul out of the conversation. When it answers fast and understands who it's talking to, that's when the booking closes.

Ask Gonzalo 📩

This week a hotelier wrote me something I hear often:

"Gonzalo, my receptionist is afraid AI is going to take their job. What do I tell them?"

I tell them the truth: AI doesn't take their job, it takes the boring part of their job.

Think about everything that eats up your receptionist's day today: copying and pasting rates, repeating the check-in time for the tenth time, answering "do you have availability?" at 3am, chasing every WhatsApp conversation so it doesn't go cold. The assistant solves all of that, end to end: it talks like a person, adapts to each guest's tone, understands, reasons and closes the booking.

What's left for your receptionist? Exactly what no screen can do: welcoming the guest who arrives and making them feel expected, anticipating the thing they didn't ask for but will be grateful for, handling the unexpected with calm and judgment, adding the human touch that transforms a stay. The assistant fills the hotel and closes the bookings; your receptionist makes that guest come back and recommend you.

The receptionist doesn't disappear. They stop living glued to the chat and go back to what made them choose this job: real hospitality, the kind where you look someone in the eye. And honestly, that job is so much nicer to do.

Your question could open the next edition 👇

I'm asking you one single thing: reply to this email with a question about AI in your hotel.

Any question. From "where do I start?" to "how do I explain this to my staff." The best ones I answer right here, in the next edition of Ask Gonzalo.

It's not a form or a bot. It comes to me, I read it and I answer it myself.

And if you think this could help someone, forward it to them. I'd really appreciate it.

See you in the next one.

Gonzalo.