Data is King, Data Distribution is King Kong

Throughout 2025, we have all been inundated by continual announcements about AI:

advances from OpenAI, initiatives from Google, the rise of Perplexity, developments by Booking and Expedia… and we have been overwhelmed by recommendations on how to follow each of these evolutions.

It is now time to step back, to make sense of all of this, and to really understand what will stand the test of time, what will remain unavoidable and consistent in the face of these transformations.

In simple terms: what are the crucial foundations which all hotels will have to master, to be prepared for every scenario in 2026?

Welcome to the world… of two worlds.

We are entering a new era in which two internets coexist:

• The human web: The internet we know: designed for humans, protected by anti-bot systems (Cloudflare, etc.) which block scraping and automated behaviors.
• The agentic web: A new space – where content and services are designed for AI agents. In this world, ChatGPT, Google, and personal agents become the real distributors, and what they need is structured, reliable, and verified data to be able to recommend and book hotels.

For hospitality, this implies two complementary dynamics:

• On one side: Hotels must continue to capture travelers’ attention through SEO, marketing, advertising, and a clear and fast website. Photos, descriptions, reviews etc. Google Business Profiles, and Hotel Ads must remain impeccably maintained.
• On the other side: AI systems (ChatGPT, Google, personal agents, etc.) are becoming the new distributors. They will only recommend and book hotels if their data is structured, reliable, consistent, and properly licensed. If this is not the case, hotels will simply be invisible and inaccessible.

More details in the articles “What Future for My Website” and “Is SEO Dead”.

Hotel chains, OTAs, and independent hotels who are capable of making their information visible, readable and usable by these agents will inevitably be the ones that benefit most from this new generation of distribution.

Primarily, what should hotels do?

• Master “classic” SEO:
  • Fast, clear, up-to-date websites,
  • Marketing, campaigns, brand content, 
  • Optimized Google listings, up-to-date photos and reviews.

• Prepare for the Agentic Web:
  • Have a structured and centralized database,
  • Ensure data consistency across all channels,
  • Enable controlled and reliable access to this data for LLMs and AI agents.

LLMs will become less reliable

Today, models are learning from a web saturated with AI-generated content: generic texts, outdated information, unverifiable data.

As a result, assistants easily and frequently reproduce these errors… and they often amplify them.

The Impact for hotels:

• Your information gets drowned among approximate content.
• Your identity is diluted into standardized descriptions.
• AI systems struggle to distinguish the official and true data for your property.

De facto, we can now envisage the emergence of a third step in the hotel booking journey. Positioned between the search phase and the actual booking, this intermediate step corresponds to validation: verifying the accuracy of the information returned by AI agents.

Predominantly, what should hotels do?

• Provide an official, verified, unique, and regularly updated data source,
• Replace generic descriptions with real structured data,
• Clean and harmonize content across all channels,
• Ensure consistency between the website, schema.org, and other platforms.

ChatGPT will start generating bookings and charging transaction fees

ChatGPT will be able to identify the best hotel for a user’s request and enable one-click booking, with very low transaction fees.

• In this model, trust becomes the central factor. ChatGPT wants to remain a neutral and reliable tool: choices will be based on relevance, the user’s real needs, and reviews. Hotels with precise, consistent, verifiable data, as well as good reviews, will therefore be naturally highlighted.
• The Direct Impact on OTAs. If bookings go through AI agents with minimal commission, 15–20% models become difficult to sustain. A new distribution mode emerges: direct booking driven by trusted agents, without advertising, relying on structured data accessible via the MCPs.
• A new distribution model is emerging. OpenAI is betting on one-click booking via trusted agents, not on advertising. Hotels must prepare an MCP / structured data infrastructure to be directly bookable by AI.

Precisely, what should hotels do?

• Guarantee reliable, complete, and regularly updated data,
• Implement a true AI-ready infrastructure (MCP + structured data),
• Optimize their online reputation, an essential signal for AI,
• Accept that trust is becoming the new marketing.

Google enters a new phase

Google is reinventing Search, Maps, and Android to turn them into a true travel assistant capable of comparing, recommending, and booking automatically. After restaurants, Google is now preparing complete hotel bookings via AI agents: the user describes their need, the AI analyzes the options, displays prices and photos, then finalizes the booking via Booking, Expedia, or major hotel chains.

Google thus becomes a decision-making interface, in direct competition with ChatGPT.

For hotels, the stakes are major: without structured, consistent, and integrated data, they will no longer appear in these results.
Google also adds sponsored results directly into AI responses.

Specifically:

• hotels that invest will be highlighted,
• others will simply not be visible – they will disappear,
• and if OTAs occupy these positions, direct booking will be severely limited.

Consequently, what should hotels do?

Properties visible in Search, Maps, and Gemini will be those that have:

• reliable, complete, structured, and up-to-date data,
• a perfectly completed Google profile,
• total consistency between the website, OTAs, and partners,
• content that is readable and usable by AI,
• Finally, it becomes necessary to plan a Google Ads budget to occupy sponsored positions in AI responses.

The rise of MCP and A2A

MCP (see article “But What Exactly Is MCP”) makes a hotel’s data directly understandable by AI systems. A2A (Agent-to-Agent) goes even further: it allows AI agents to communicate with each other without human intervention. Instead of an AI simply “reading” your information, A2A allows the traveler’s agent to exchange directly with your hotel’s agent.

Concretely:

• the customer’s AI requests availability,
• your AI responds,
• they check loyalty benefits,
• then finalize the booking,

This is the future of the customer journey: bookings managed automatically, machine to machine.

Ultimately, what should hotels do?

• Structure their data to make it fully understandable by AI
• Provide a true “hotel API” via MCP
• Integrate MCP and A2A into the property’s technology architecture
• Acknowledge that in the future, the website will become secondary in the customer journey

The summary of the summaries

1. Structure your content to make it readable by machines

• Use schema.org markup and structured data: rates, amenities, policies, inventory.
• Focus on clear and reliable data determines your visibility.
• Prioritise structured data: without it your hotel will disappear.
• Combine the MCP and clear data: to ensure you become visible, recommended, and bookable.

2. Make your loyalty program accessible to AI assistants

Integrate benefits and preferences into systems that agents can query.

3. Adapt your campaigns to the new AI-guided journey

• Produce content understandable by humans and machines.
• Use AI to create content at scale and consistently.

4. Redefine “direct booking”

“Direct” now means being readable, understandable, and actionable by AI agents.
It is no longer only about avoiding OTAs: it is about appearing in assistants’ recommendations.
Everything depends on data quality and technical integration.

Thus, to the question asked in the introduction — what is the foundation every hotel must master, whatever the 2026 scenario? — the answer is unambiguous:

• Q-Data: centralize, structure, and easily update 3,700 data points per hotel,
• Q-SEO: generate dynamic, multilingual FAQs from questions asked to Velma and from Q-Data,
• Q-Channel: distribute Q-Data hotel information across the entire AI ecosystem,
• Q-Share: update your website, schema.org, and all digital assets, all of which are powered by Q-Data.

We will have the opportunity to continue these discussions at FITUR in Madrid in January, ITB in Berlin in March, and ATM in Dubai in May.

Hasta la vista.

© Image: Shutterstock