What to do this week

Test your current schema. Paste your hotel's URL into Google's Rich Results Test. If it returns no structured data, you're starting from zero.

Implement Hotel schema on your homepage. Include your property name, full address, phone, star rating, price range, check-in/check-out times, and key amenities. Use JSON-LD format in the HTML head.

Add FAQPage schema to your most-visited pages. Start with the ten questions your front desk answers most. Mark them up as structured FAQ content in the server-rendered HTML.

Boost Background

We audited a boutique hotel group's website last quarter and found something we see constantly: beautifully designed pages, strong photography, compelling copy, but zero schema markup. Not on the homepage, not on the room pages, not on the restaurant or spa sections. When we asked ChatGPT about the property, it returned a vague two-sentence description pulled from a TripAdvisor blurb. The competitor down the street, with proper Hotel schema, FAQPage markup, and Review structured data, got a detailed recommendation that included room types, price range, and amenities.

Schema markup is the language AI uses to understand what your hotel is, what it offers, and how to describe it accurately. Without it, AI guesses. With it, AI knows.

What schema does for AI visibility

Schema markup is structured data you embed in your website's HTML that explicitly tells search engines and AI systems what your content means. It's not visible to guests, but it's the primary way AI models parse and verify facts about your property.

For hotels, this matters at a practical level. When a traveler asks "pet-friendly hotels in Austin under $200 with a pool," AI needs to match your property against those attributes. If your website mentions pets in a blog post and shows pool photos in a JavaScript gallery, that information may not be connected or accessible to crawlers. Schema packages these facts into a standardized format AI reads instantly: pet policy, price range, amenities, coordinates, star rating, room types.

WordLift ran an experiment with over 500 local businesses implementing structured data and measured a 5% increase in Google Search clicks within a single week. Properties with visible star ratings in search results see 15 to 25% higher click-through rates. Those results compound when AI systems use the same structured data to inform recommendations.

The schema types that matter for hotels

The hierarchy on Schema.org goes LocalBusiness > LodgingBusiness > Hotel. Use the most specific type that applies. Here's what each layer adds:

Hotel schema covers the fundamentals: property name, address, phone, star rating, price range, check-in/check-out times, description, and amenities. This is the minimum. If you implement nothing else, start here. It tells AI exactly what kind of entity you are and provides the baseline facts needed for accurate recommendations.

HotelRoom and Offer schema describe individual room types as products: bed configuration, occupancy, price, and availability. This helps AI answer specific queries like "king suite with balcony" or "family room for four."

FAQPage schema is one of the highest-value additions for AI visibility. Mark up your frequently asked questions about parking, Wi-Fi, breakfast, cancellation policies, and local transportation. AI tools pull FAQ content directly into answers, and the structured format makes it easy for models to match your property to specific traveler questions.

Review and AggregateRating schema surface your guest ratings in a machine-readable format. While AI platforms pull from TripAdvisor and Google Reviews, having Review schema on your own site reinforces credibility and gives AI an additional cross-reference source.

Restaurant and Event schema apply if your property has on-site dining or hosts events. A resort with a notable restaurant benefits from separate Restaurant schema covering cuisine type, hours, and reservations. Event schema captures venue-related searches that lead to room bookings.

The critical implementation detail

Where your schema lives matters as much as what it contains. As Search Engine Journal documented, structured data injected via Google Tag Manager or client-side JavaScript is invisible to AI crawlers. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot only read what's in the initial server-rendered HTML. If your schema loads after the page renders, it doesn't exist to these systems.

This catches many hotels off guard. A common setup uses GTM to manage all structured data across a site. That works for Google's crawler, which executes JavaScript. It fails completely for every major AI crawler. Schema must be embedded directly in the HTML source, either hardcoded or generated server-side, to be readable by the systems powering ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.