Good day fellow hoteliers and welcome to episode 270 of The Hotel Marketing Podcast by TravelBoom. I’m your host Pete DiMaio, and with me today, I have Mackenzie Livernois, and Jeremy Razook.
If you feel like you’re getting left behind by the AI revolution and you know you “should” know more, but don’t know where to start, well, this is the episode for you.
The Hotel Marketing Podcast is now also on YouTube where you can join the cast, comment, and more. So remember to click that subscribe button and hit the bell so you’ll be notified of new episodes! https://www.youtube.com/@travelboommarketing
TravelBoom’s Room for Improvement: Fixing Hotel Failures
TravelBoom’s Room For Improvement uncovers the tough questions guests and hoteliers face every day and shares insights into how staff can connect and improve guest relations.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hotels/comments/1jieweu/luxury_hotel_with_no_hot_water/asasd
The Main Topic: OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4.5 Aims To Revolutionize Hotel Marketing
The information and strategies hoteliers need to succeed in today’s competitive market.
Today we are going to be looking at OpenAI’s ChatGPT specifically. CoPilot, Gemini, Claude, Meta, and other types of AI exist, but to keep this episode from being hours upon hours long, we’re looking at just ChatGPT.
Let’s do a quick catch-up on where OpenAI is with the evolution of GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer).
- GPT 1 – June 2018
- GPT 2 – February 2019
- GPT 3 – June 2020
- GPT 4 – March 2023 (when things start getting real interesting with live web data)
- GPT 4o – May 2024
- GPT 4.5 – February 27, 2025
The big problems OpenAI has faced include:
- Scaling Reason
- Hallucinations
- Lack of transparency
- Lack of abstract reasoning
- Cognitive biases
What’s new with GPT 4.5 (Orion)
- Much more natural conversations
- Wildly expanded based on data
- Reduced hallucination rate
- Advanced multimodal capabilities
- More models for more specific uses
How Hoteliers Can Make ChatGPT Work Harder
Best Practices
- 1 long chat is better than several short ones
- Spend time on creating a great prompt
- You have to educate your GPT
- Spend $20!
Understand The Different GPTs and Projects
- Different GPTs for different reasons (4o, 4.5, o1 and more)
- Custom GPTs:
- When you need a specialized conversational agent capable of handling domain-specific questions, automating personalized tasks, or integrating external tools and data sources.
- Projects
- When your goal is to collaborate on documents, manage content creation, organize complex tasks, or support ongoing projects that require structured context and iteration.
Deep Research Is Amazing
- Take advantage of the research capabilities and use a prompt that will set you up for success.
- As an example:
- For this chat, you are a hotel digital marketing expert with 20 years of experience with a special focus on both independent hotels as well as leisure travel. Please create a research report detailing the past 7 years of how the search results page has changed and how that impacts the ability for hotels to drive direct bookings. Pay special attention to the growth of metasearch as well as how OTAs are potentially eroding the book direct rate by altering their commission rate, thus causing an issue of lack of rate parity. Please use bullets as much as possible for clarity as well as cite sources.
Timeframe
Geographc Focus
Level of Detail
Specific Sources
- For this chat, you are a hotel digital marketing expert with 20 years of experience with a special focus on both independent hotels as well as leisure travel. Please create a research report detailing the past 7 years of how the search results page has changed and how that impacts the ability for hotels to drive direct bookings. Pay special attention to the growth of metasearch as well as how OTAs are potentially eroding the book direct rate by altering their commission rate, thus causing an issue of lack of rate parity. Please use bullets as much as possible for clarity as well as cite sources.
Data Analysis
- A paid subscription is critical here
- Format spreadsheets appropriately
- Ask for tables and graphics
- You can even create slide decks
- Uncover insights across multiple reports
Beyond ChatGPT:
- Image Generation with Dall.e
- Video generation with Sora
- Using multiple platforms to check and optimize
- Fun with Notebook.lm
Conclusion:
- Things are changing and evolving faster than ever
- Pay the $20
- Dedicate time to learning GPT
- Utilize best practices
- Take advantage of deep research
- Turbocharge your analytics
- Expand beyond GPT
- As Tim Peter says, “AI won’t take your job, but smart people using AI will”
60 Seconds to Success
(Each cast member has just one minute to share a tip or trick to make your hotel marketing more effective)
It’s not enough to create content just to stay active online. To really move the needle, your content should be genuinely valuable to your guests. So before writing a blog or social media post, ask yourself: Would this help someone plan their trip or get more excited about staying here?
Focus on topics like:
- Trip planning guides
- Seasonal travel tips
- Local itineraries or hidden gems
This kind of content builds trust, boosts time on site, and improves SEO (Google rewards helpful content, and so do your guests in chances of direct bookings). If it answers a real question or solves a traveler’s problem, you’re on the right track.
Submit your questions and topic ideas on Twitter to @_travelboom or info@travelboommarketing.com.