How Venues Can Show Up in AI Search: 3 Simple Steps

"It never occurred to us to search ourselves and see what comes up." (Venue attendee)

On 5 October we brought venues, suppliers and partners together at HubHub Farringdon for Two Sides of Search: What AI Search Means for Venues, Not Just Organisers. Our panel, which was moderated by VenueScanner’s UK GM Lizzie Patterson, included Anna Fenten Co-founder of Premier Crew, Andreu Paddack CEO of ListoAI and Hannah Barry, VenueScanner’s Head of Marketing. It looked at how AI is changing the way venues get found, and what venues can do about it.

We wanted to know what people actually took away, so our partners at HoxtonAi ran a live feedback pop-up at the event, capturing short questionnaires and recorded conversations on a tablet. They gathered quick, anonymous feedback through short spoken interviews and a few tap-to-answer survey questions. This combines qualitative feedback - what people thought and why - with quantitative ratings and segmentations. Just seven completed interviews generated over 3,000 words of feedback, showing how much people can share in a short conversation without having to type out their answers. One thing to note: guests were so engaged in the panel and the networking that the interviewer didn't want to interrupt them. In a way, that small sample is a sign of how engaged the room was.

It is a much smaller sample than HoxtonAi would typically collect, so treat what follows as a snapshot of the room rather than a verdict on the industry. Even so, some clear themes came through.

Everyone expects AI search to matter. Few feel ready.

Everyone we spoke to expected AI search to be a key source, or the main source, of venue enquiries within one to two years. Concern about losing visibility averaged 5.6 out of 7, and four people gave the top score. Only one rated themselves highly on how far they've adapted their marketing.

"It's an unavoidable change in life and unless you embrace it and get on with it, you're going to be left behind." (Venue attendee)

Several people also said they use AI every day but don't feel technical enough to know how their venue shows up inside it.

Nobody is sure what's actually arriving

Two people didn't know what share of their enquiries came from AI search. The conversations showed why the picture is so mixed. One venue said corporate organisers regularly arrive saying they found them on ChatGPT or Claude. Another saw no change, with bookings still coming from repeat clients by email.

The one venue that could answer had a simple method: they ask every enquiry how they found them.

The most useful takeaway was also the simplest

When we asked what people would take home, the answer was the website. Four people named accurate, detailed venue information as a top-two factor for appearing in AI results, and three named website content and SEO. One marketer from a pub chain realised the same descriptions were repeated across every site and planned to rewrite them.

Others took away something even simpler: run the search yourself and see what comes back.

What our panellists said on the night

Ask AI about your venue. Andreu Paddack, founder of Listo, urged venues to find out what AI and large language models actually say about them. Search for your venue on ChatGPT and others, ask it to tell you about the venue, then repeat the exercise with a few competitors to see how you compare. In our report he explains why: it isn't just whether you appear, but how you appear, what the model says about you and what it cites to back that up.

Don't lose the human element. Anna Fenten, managing director of Premier Crew, reminded the room that AI may speed up research, but people still buy from people. As she says in the report, organisers might use AI to build a shortlist, but they still want reassurance from another person, the chance to ask questions, attend a showround and build trust.

AI traffic is already showing up in our data. Hannah Barry, our head of marketing, shared what we're seeing across VenueScanner: an uptick in traffic coming from AI. It's still a small share of overall traffic, but it's measurable. Eighteen months ago we received virtually no traffic from AI assistants, and today ChatGPT alone has referred more contacts than Facebook.

The wider market points the same way. Similarweb estimates that generative AI platforms drew 9.5 billion web visits a month between June 2025 and May 2026, up 70% year on year. Seer Interactive found that brands cited in a Google AI Overview saw 35% higher organic click-through than those that weren't.

Why the panel landed

Guests told HoxtonAi they valued practical, jargon-free advice with no consultancy fees. One said it showed that far more was in their control than they'd expected.

Our own post-event survey backed that up. Four guests replied, giving us a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of +50, with two promoters, two passives and no detractors. Guests called the panel "diverse and informative" and "fantastic", and one said everything "ran super smoothly" from start to finish. The venue and refreshments got a mention too.

Three things to do this week

1. Ask AI about your venue. Search for it on ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask it to tell you about the venue. Note whether you appear, how you're described and what it cites. Then repeat for a few competitors. Try an organiser-style brief too, for example "conference venue in London for 100 to 150 people with an industrial warehouse aesthetic, easy access required."
2. Review your venue descriptions. Make each one unique, and check capacities, facilities and accessibility are accurate.
3. Add "How did you hear about us?" to your enquiry form or first call, with AI assistants as an option.

Keep reading

For the bigger picture, read our report, The Future of Search in Hospitality.

Thank you to our panellists, to HubHub, MYDFlower, Indulge Dining, Yahire and HoxtonAi, and to every venue who joined us.

About the data: HoxtonAi's findings come from seven questionnaires and seven interviews captured live by one interviewer, who deliberately avoided interrupting guests during the panel and networking. The sample is small and non-random, so results are illustrative only. We also ran a four-response post-event survey. Market statistics and panellist quotes from the report are drawn from The Future of Search in Hospitality.