RESEARCH · FOR HOTEL GROUPS
How hotel groups can measure AI recommendations across a portfolio
When AI recommends a hotel, it is also choosing between groups and brands. For a hotel group, the useful question is not "is this property recommended?" but "how does our portfolio perform against the other groups competing for the same travellers, market by market and category by category?"
AI See You is an independent AI recommendation research company for travel. In September 2026 our research covered 77 destinations in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom, 8,944 accommodation properties, 166 hotel groups represented and 318,641 AI recommendations analysed across seven AI surfaces (source: /press).
Why property-level reporting isn't enough
Agencies and internal teams can report on a group's own properties. What they usually can't see is the rest of the market, because that requires measuring every hotel in every destination the same way, customer or not. Without the whole market, a group can't tell whether a property's position reflects its own performance or a shift among competitors.
Four measures that make portfolio performance readable
1. Share of recommendations, destination by destination. How often AI recommends the group's properties compared with competing groups in the same destination and traveller categories.
2. Category leadership. The traveller categories where the group's properties lead, and where another group's properties lead instead. Leadership is category-specific. Our public September 2026 rankings show the same brand leading different categories in different cities (sources: public ranking pages for Sydney and Melbourne):
- The Langham is the most recommended Luxury and Romantic hotel in Melbourne, and #3 for Business there. In Sydney it leads Romantic and Wellness but ranks #5 for Luxury.
- Park Hyatt is the most recommended Luxury hotel in Sydney and in Auckland, and #5 for Luxury in Melbourne.
3. Brand by brand. How each brand or collection performs against competing brands in the same destinations. Some brands concentrate in a single traveller category. In Sydney's September 2026 Budget top 10, five of the ten hotels carry the ibis name (ibis Styles Sydney Central, ibis budget Sydney East, ibis Sydney Barangaroo, ibis Sydney Darling Harbour and ibis Sydney World Square). In Auckland, ibis budget properties hold #1 and #5 in Budget (sources: public Sydney and Auckland ranking pages).
4. Movement between groups. Which groups gained or lost ground since the last period, and where the group moved. Movement must compare like with like: comparable measurement cells and the same AI surfaces, not different panels (source: /methodology, /press). In September 2026, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore had August-to-September common-panel comparisons; the UK provides a first-period baseline (source: /press).
Comparing properties on equal terms
Because the same methodology is used in every destination, a group can compare a property in Sydney with one in London on equal terms. It can see each property's position in every traveller category and on every AI platform, the hotels AI recommends ahead of it, and the sources AI cites alongside them (source: /hotel-groups).
Fixing issues once, across the group
The most valuable portfolio findings are often the ones that repeat: the same gap in how AI describes several properties, or the same missing source across a brand. A central team can address these once, across several properties, rather than one hotel at a time. Findings should be graded by strength of evidence (Observed, Tested or Hypothesis), so teams can tell measured evidence from emerging research (source: /hotel-groups).
Measurement cadence
Every destination is measured monthly through the AI See You Pulse, and each Pulse must pass certification before publication. Groups receive Portfolio Intelligence every quarter, showing what changed, which properties gained or lost ground and how the group moved against other groups.
About this research. Hotel groups don't pay to enter our rankings. Every property in a destination is measured with the same methodology, whether its group works with AI See You or not. Read the methodology →
See how your group compares with other groups in your markets.