If a hotel has a gym but Google, Gemini, and Perplexity can’t find it, does the gym even exist?
In the eyes of a modern consumer, no. And I have the resistance bands in my suitcase to prove it.
I recently returned from a trip to France that exposed a massive, systemic failure in how businesses manage their digital presence — a gap that’s making even large, established brands invisible to the AI tools people now use to make buying decisions. If you’re a business owner, this isn’t just a travel story. It’s a warning.
Why a Hotel Gym Became Non-Negotiable
Over the last two years, my husband Eric and I completely overhauled how we approach health. It wasn’t a gradual shift — something clicked around Eric’s 50th birthday. We looked at the people around us who hadn’t taken care of themselves and decided we weren’t going to be those people. Now, whether we’re home in Colorado or traveling abroad, the gym is a daily fixture.
That wasn’t always the case. Fifteen years ago in Bali, we were in great shape. Then came Bangkok, constant travel, and the eat-and-drink-everything lifestyle that came with it. By the time COVID hit and we were living in Ireland, I was at my highest weight ever. We turned it around — I lost 35 pounds during lockdown — and we’ve been protective of those habits ever since.
When we travel now, we’re not just looking for a comfortable bed. We’re looking for a property that supports how we live. Even a small basement gym with no windows counts.
Using AI to Plan a Trip — and Getting It Wrong
On a recent trip through three smaller cities in France, our usual Marriott and IHG options weren’t available in the city centers we were visiting. We landed on Accor properties — mostly Mercure hotels, a brand we hadn’t stayed with in years. To research the trip, I used Gemini and Eric used Perplexity.
Gym availability was a key filter. We checked hotel websites, social channels, and asked the AI tools directly. Based on everything we could find, only the one Marriott on our itinerary had a gym. We adjusted. We packed resistance bands. We mentally prepared to keep our workouts to walking and whatever we could do in a hotel room.
We had done our research, or so we thought.
What We Found When We Actually Arrived
Every single Mercure hotel had a gym.
Not one of them had mentioned it anywhere online — not on the primary website, not on social channels, not in any data that Gemini or Perplexity could surface. The information simply didn’t exist in a form that AI could find.
I stayed at those hotels anyway. But I came very close to booking elsewhere. For a large portion of the traveling public — especially Americans — gym access is a real booking filter. These hotels nearly lost a guest over information that was sitting right there on property, completely uncommunicated.
In the current environment, that’s not just a content gap. It’s a revenue risk.
Why AI Can’t Find You (Even When the Answer Exists)
The problem wasn’t that the gyms didn’t exist. The problem was that the data didn’t exist in a form AI could use. Most businesses are failing at AI visibility for a few consistent reasons:
- Information is buried in images or PDFs rather than crawlable text — AI tools prioritize text, not photos
- Details are fragmented across channels, with the website, social profiles, and third-party booking sites all saying something different (or nothing at all)
- Descriptions aren’t written in natural language — AI looks for conversational context, and vague or omitted details don’t make the connection
If a massive international brand like Accor can’t get basic amenities indexed correctly, local and independent businesses are facing an even steeper climb.
What to Do About It
The fix isn’t complicated. It starts with treating your digital presence as a structured data set — not just a marketing surface.
- Ask AI tools the questions your customers ask. Type your business name into Gemini, ChatGPT, or Perplexity and ask specific questions: Do you have a gym? What are your hours? What’s included in the price? See what comes back.
- Be explicit, not clever. If you have a gym, say you have a gym. Clear, factual language outperforms creative or vague descriptions every time in AI search.
- Update your Google Business profile. This is one of the primary sources AI tools currently pull from. Amenities, hours, services, and photos with descriptive text all matter.
- Think like a customer with a dealbreaker. What are the 3–5 things that would make someone choose you or rule you out? Make those the easiest things for an AI to find.
Why it Matters
Whether you’re running a hotel in France or a small business in the U.S., your visibility is your lifeblood. We’ve moved from an era of searching to an era of asking. Consumers are consulting AI tools the way they used to consult a knowledgeable friend — and if you haven’t given the AI the information it needs to recommend you, you’re not second best.
You’re invisible.
Key Takeaways
- If your business details aren’t published in crawlable text, AI tools can’t surface them — regardless of what’s true on the ground.
- AI search is filter-based, not browse-based. If you’re missing a data point a customer is filtering for, you’re excluded before they ever see your name.
- Photos alone aren’t enough. LLMs need descriptive text to understand what’s in them.
- Fragmented information across channels creates confusion — and silence is worse than no answer at all.
- This is fixable. A Google Business profile audit and a content update can make a measurable difference quickly.
FAQ
AI tools crawl your website, Google Business profile, and other public sources. If your services, amenities, or differentiators aren’t written out in clear, structured text, the AI can’t confirm you offer what the user is looking for — and won’t include you in the response.
Yes. Traditional SEO was built around keywords. AI-optimized content — sometimes called Generative Engine Optimization — is about providing clear, comprehensive answers to the specific questions your customers are asking. The goal is to be the source an AI tool cites, not just a link that ranks.
No. AI tools prioritize text. If your gym, menu, or service offering is communicated only through images — without descriptive captions or accompanying written content — it’s functionally invisible to most AI search tools.
Ask it directly. Open ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity and ask specific questions about your business as if you were a new customer. The gaps in what it can answer are exactly where your content needs work.
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