Black Hat SEO Rerun: Are We Making the Same Mistakes With GEO?
Have we time-traveled back to 2010? (Yes, we are aging ourselves.) As hotels race to improve their visibility in LLMs, a growing number of AI-first companies are recommending the same basic strategy: Create lots more content. Answer every conceivable question. Publish endless FAQs. Generate hundreds, or thousands, of pages designed to make sure AI knows […]
Stop Spending, Start Investing: How Digital Infrastructure Drives Commercial Value
For most hotel leadership teams, marketing lives firmly on the cost side of the ledger. It looks like a series of short-term expenses: seasonal campaigns, promotional pushes, and localized media spend designed to patch immediate occupancy gaps. When budgets fall short, they are the first expenses to get cut. It is time to change that […]
AI Reality Check Series: Before Chasing AI Visibility, Get Your Digital Basics Right
Stephanie Smith recently joined The AI Reality Check Series with Revenue Hub to discuss how AI is influencing hotel digital marketing and how hotels can leverage it effectively, especially if they’re not already performing well digitally. Key Insights Hotels want to know if they appear in AI tools like ChatGPT, but it’s important to remember […]
What HSMAI 2026 Kept Saying (Whether It Meant To or Not)
I spent June 16-17 at the HSMAI Commercial Strategy Conference in San Antonio, where Sales, Revenue Management, and Marketing all gather under one roof to solve problems, align strategies, and occasionally argue about attribution. Dane Robinson, a multi-talented keynote speaker and TV fitness coach, served as MC. He showed up with full Ric Flair energy […]
If Search and Display Had a Baby: Why Demand Gen is the New Hybrid You Actually Want
Updated on September 9, 2026 What are Demand Gen campaigns? Google’s new Demand Gen campaign is designed to capture engagement and actions across YouTube, including Shorts, Discover, Gmail, and Google Display Network websites. They are ideal for advertisers who want to serve visually appealing, multi-format ads through Google channels. Google shares that the benefits of […]
Does a Hotel Press Release Impact AI Discoverability?
We think so. Press releases may be dead for Google, but consider a change of tune when it comes to AI and LLMs. A smart distribution strategy can indirectly influence how AI-powered tools see and recommend your hotel. How AI Models Actually “Learn” about Hotels Large language models aren’t scrolling your wire feed in real […]
TikTok Has Entered the Chat: Metasearch
The only thing more valuable than having someone’s attention is getting them to do something with it, and TikTok has mastered both. The wild success of TikTokShop has proven that TikTok has the ability to lead its users through a traditional marketing funnel, without ever leaving the app. From inspiration to research, and all the […]
AI in Action: Lessons from the Female Founders in Hospitality Summit
Stephanie Smith of Cogwheel recently joined an incredible panel at the Female Founders in Hospitality Summit in New York, moderated by Saadiq Rodgers-King, an AI Transformation Consultant, alongside Kim Bennett of AtlasGuru and Katrina Stalcup of Fora Travel. Here were a few of my biggest takeaways from the discussion. Start with the Problem, Not a Tool One of the biggest reasons AI pilots fail is that companies start […]
Grow Your Hotel Brand: Essential Facebook and Instagram Strategies
So you have been tasked with being responsible for running your hotel’s Facebook and Instagram (aka Meta) accounts, you have a social media plan and have read the brand guidelines, but you’re just not sure if you’re doing this right. What’s the secret sauce? Here are some strategies for both Facebook and Instagram: Facebook Strategies […]
The New Hotel AI Funnel: Discoverability vs. Transaction
Not all AI investments for the hotel industry are equal. Many solutions focus on transaction infrastructure, but discoverability is often the gating factor for success. AI hotel distribution has two components: being recommended and being bookable. Most hotels should focus first on being recommendable before investing heavily in booking integrations. It’s a classic case of […]