Where Do Your Guests Search Today? Search Has Fragmented — And That Changes Everything

Picture two guests. The first, let's call her Anna, planned a wellness weekend back in 2019: she typed "wellness hotel Hévíz" into Google, scrolled through the first page, opened four or five hotels in new tabs, compared prices, and booked. A simple, linear journey — and you knew exactly what you had to do to be seen: good SEO, a good position.

The second guest, Béla, is planning the same kind of weekend now. But he does it in a completely different way. He asks ChatGPT, "where should I take my partner for a relaxing wellness weekend around Lake Balaton, with a dog?". He gets three specific recommendations. He searches Google for one of them — where an AI summary greets him before he sees a single link. Then he checks the hotel's Instagram, reads a few Google reviews, and finally books on Booking.

Anna searched on one channel. Béla on five — and not necessarily ending up on your site on any of them.

Search is no longer a single box

The most important thing to understand is this: search has fragmented. There is no longer a single place where you need to "be at the top". It happens in parallel across six different surfaces, and being present means something different on each — and requires something different too.

Let's go through them one by one — not in general terms, but from the perspective of how a hotel is affected.

1. Classic Google — the Google SERP (results list)

This is the surface everyone knows. The guest types in a keyword, gets a ranked list of links, and clicks through. Visibility here is simple: position. The higher you are, the more clicks you get.

This is still a huge source of traffic, and classic SEO is still worth it. But two things are happening to it. First, more and more space above it is being taken up by the AI summary, the ads, the map pack — by the time the guest reaches the "real" results, they've already seen a lot. Second, a growing share of searches never even reaches the Google SERP, because the answer is found elsewhere.

2. Google AI Overview

The same search as above, but an AI summary box appears at the top, citing and linking to a few sources. Here the game changes dramatically: it's no longer about where you rank in the list, but about whether you make it into the summary, and whether Google's AI links to you.

The guest often doesn't open a single page — they read the summary and move on. This is called "zero-click" search. At first glance it's bad news: fewer clicks. But there's an important twist: if the summary cites you, your brand is in the best possible spot, right at the top — even if there's no click. The appearance itself is valuable.

3. Google AI Mode — conversational search

AI Overview is still just a box above the results. Google AI Mode goes one step further: a full, conversational search mode within Google, where the guest doesn't type a keyword but asks, refines, and follows up — just like with an AI assistant, only Google-based and synthesised from many sources.

Here the guest doesn't type "wellness hotel Hévíz" but rather "I'm looking for a relaxing, adults-friendly wellness hotel near Hévíz where you can bring a dog and there's a proper spa" — then, after the answer, follows up: "and which one has the best guest reviews?". Google accompanies them throughout a single conversation and gives specific recommendations, not a list of results.

Visibility here is again a question of being cited: whether you make it into the conversation as a source, as a recommendation. Since AI Mode caters to longer, question-oriented, multi-turn searches, it particularly favours hotels that offer clear content that answers questions — detailed room and service descriptions, genuine FAQs. Those who prepare for this will surface not only in the AI Overview box but also in deeper, conversational search.

4. AI assistants: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity

Here the guest doesn't even open Google. They ask the assistant directly: "where should I go for a wellness weekend with my partner at Lake Balaton?". The answer isn't a list, but a formulated recommendation — and either you're in it, or you're not.

This surface has two modes of operation, and it's worth understanding both:

• Based on knowledge (without live search): the model works from what it saw on the web during training. What matters here is how present your brand is: lots of mentions, reviews, catalogue listings. This changes slowly and favours older, established brands.
• With live search (grounding): the model searches in real time and cites sources (Perplexity always, ChatGPT and Gemini often). Here GEO matters again: indexability, authority, clean content.

The bottom line: there's no position and no list here. Either you're in the answer, or you stay invisible — and the guest will never even know you existed.