When a traveller asks AI where to stay or eat in Belfast, is it your name?
More guests now plan trips by asking ChatGPT or Gemini, not by scrolling search results. Hospitality is the most AI-visible sector we tested. Northern Irish hotels and restaurants were recommended 35.4% of the time on open questions, far ahead of other sectors. But that average hides a hard line. A handful of venues take almost every recommendation, and the rest are invisible. Here’s which side you’re on, and why.
Nearly five times the rate of local agencies.
Across cold questions where no venue was named, “best hotel in Belfast,” “where should I eat,” “a nice place to stay near the centre,” AI recommended one of the twelve NI venues we tested 35.4% of the time. That’s nearly five times the rate for local agencies, and it’s no accident. Hospitality lives on exactly the sources AI trusts.
Cold visibility, hospitality NI
35.4%
Twelve NI hotels and restaurants. Four assistants. Nine questions each. The rate at which a venue was named when no guest had named it first. Scan dated 15 June 2026.
Why hospitality wins, and why most venues still lose.
The reason this sector scores highest is footprint. When we traced the assistants’ answers, they were built almost entirely from third-party travel and review platforms, the places guests already go. The venues that get recommended are the ones woven through all of them. The ones that aren’t simply don’t come up, however good the rooms or the food.
The sources the assistants leaned on most for Belfast hospitality
- 01TripAdvisor
- 02Reddit threads ("best hotel in Belfast" and similar)
- 03OTAs: Expedia, Trivago, Hotels.com, Booking
- 04The Michelin Guide (restaurants)
- 05Small Luxury Hotels of the World (higher-end stays)
- 06Travel editorial: Telegraph travel, named travel blogs, Rick Steves community
- 07Official tourism: Visit Belfast, Discover Northern Ireland
If your venue is thin or inconsistent across these, you’re leaning on the assistant already knowing you. On open questions, it reaches for the venue with the deeper footprint.
Named high, or not at all.
When a venue appeared, it almost always appeared near the top of a short list. AI doesn’t hand out long rankings. It names two or three and stops. You’re in that handful, or you’re not in the answer.
Presence beats accuracy.
The assistants described venues accurately almost every time they mentioned them. The work isn’t correcting bad information. The work is being present, reviewed, listed and described consistently across the platforms above, so the machine has a reason to name you.
What we’d do for your venue.
- 01
Check
What the four assistants say about your hotel or restaurant today, across the questions guests actually ask.
- 02
Map the gap
Which review and travel platforms your recommended rivals dominate, and where you're thin.
- 03
Fix the footprint
Get listed, reviewed and described consistently where the assistants look, then confirm they pick it up.
See where you stand. Free.
Run your venue the way we ran these twelve. About thirty seconds, no card, no call. Just the answer.
Check your AI visibility. Free.About the author
Phill Hendry runs Level44, a Belfast brand and web studio building for the answer-engine era. This research was produced in-house using Level44’s own AI visibility platform.
The series
Part of Level44’s AI visibility research set.
A connected set of pages on how AI assistants decide which businesses to recommend. Read in any order.
- How AI decides which businesses to recommend
The cornerstone essay. How AI assistants build their shortlists, and why most NI businesses are missing.
- The State of AI Visibility for Northern Irish Business 2026
The full data report. 1,296 answers, four assistants, 36 businesses, broken down by sector, assistant and question type.
- Methodology
How the scan was run, what was measured, and the limits stated plainly. Citable.
- AI visibility for accountancy firms in Northern Ireland
The sector at 14.6%. Which sources the assistants leaned on and where the firms that surface live online.
- AI visibility for agencies and studios in Northern Ireland
The lowest-visibility sector at 7.5%. The structural reasons creative agencies score worst.
- How AI search actually works, an FAQ
Plain answers to the common questions, plus a glossary.
Want to know what AI says about your venue?
Run the free check. About a minute, no card, full PDF in your inbox.
Figures from Level44’s scan of 12 NI hotels and restaurants across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, 15 June 2026.