CHR: new strategies in response to AI-generated recommendations

In 2025, 35% of French people asked an AI for advice when choosing a restaurant or accommodation. Faced with this trend, industry professionals are massively adapting their digital strategy in order to "convince" AI tools to recommend their establishment.

Whom can you trust when choosing a hotel or a restaurant? For 35% of French people, the answer now lies with an AI tool. And this figure rose by 74% in 2025, showing the considerable speed at which these tools are being adopted, as they are considered faster, clearer and less cluttered with advertising than search engines or social networks.

The result: in this highly competitive sector, the question is no longer just how to appear in the top Google results, explains Nicolas Marette, founder of the reputation and local marketing platform. It is now about being cited in the answer an AI tool provides when given a specific query: for example, finding a good hotel in a quiet neighborhood in Bordeaux, or a vegetarian restaurant in Lille for a given budget.

The exercise is all the more complex because an AI tool can give a different answer to the same question asked twice by the same person, or even "invent" results that do not exist: many consumers have been told by AI about menus or promotions that never existed. Nevertheless, despite its flaws and gray areas, AI will very likely continue to make inroads into everyday use: 71% of French people believe that its influence will grow in the hospitality and restaurant industry over the coming years.

Accumulating good reviews is no longer enough: consistency and authenticated reviews take center stage
In this context, industry professionals are massively evolving their digital strategy: it is no longer enough to accumulate good customer reviews; they now need to be made detectable by an AI. To do this, the key is to have reviews that are consistent with one another and broadly similar from one platform to another, observes Nicolas Marette. An establishment rated 4,2 out of 5, with an identical rating on several platforms, will be recommended more easily than another one that gets 5 on one platform and 3 on another. Overall, 78% of AI models place more value on cross-platform semantic consistency than on the average rating.

To refine its analysis, the AI will also rank the content published about an establishment: in the hospitality and restaurant sector, it is above all Google, Booking, Tripadvisor and The Fork reviews that an AI will value. And among all these sources, the AI will give particular extra weight to reviews posted in a controlled environment, such as Booking or authenticated review platforms. In other words: the harder a piece of data is to tamper with, the more the AI values it.

Finally, AI needs clarity, to "understand" the promise of a brand or an establishment: it systematically favors players who have chosen to explain clearly what they offer, and neglects brands with vague, overly generic or unrealistic promises.

Sharply rising demand from companies in the sector
"Faced with this increased need for consistency, we see a growing number of cafés, hotels, restaurants and campsites entrusting us with the evolution of their digital strategy," says Nicolas Marette. "Once we have defined the map of strategic platforms for them, we centralize and weight the content concerning them, eliminating duplicates and, if possible, fake reviews. This gives AI a clear and comprehensive overview of the content concerning them." Finally, Custplace takes particular care with the "Presence Management" of these establishments: opening hours, prices, promotions offered... everything must be impeccable and identical from one platform to another, again to send the AI a consistent message that builds trust.

Of course, none of these actions guarantees a miraculous boost from AI with 100% certainty. But they do, in any case, strengthen an establishment's most important asset: the trust it generates among... humans. It is above all this dimension that will determine their choice: AI does influence purchasing decisions, but only 17% of consumers blindly follow its recommendations. And the others? Once the AI has suggested a brand to them, they behave as before: they read customer reviews and the responses given. All the more reason to take care of this aspect, which is more closely scrutinized today than ever.