The Future of Hotel Booking: What Role Images, Videos and AI Can Play

Not so long ago, holiday planning often began with a thick catalogue from the travel agent: one photo of the pool, one of the room, a short text, a price table. Today it often starts with a video on a smartphone, a search for the hotel’s name or a question to an AI assistant. The paths have multiplied, and the amount of information has grown enormously.

What does that mean for the future of hotel booking? This article sorts out what has already become established in digital travel planning, what is still developing – and why visual impressions can play an interesting role. No promises about the future, but a close look at where things stand.

From the travel catalogue to digital travel planning

The catalogue had one clear advantage: it was easy to scan. Its drawback: it only showed what the tour operator wanted to show, and it was often slightly out of date by the time it was printed. The internet added hotel websites, booking platforms and review sites. Suddenly travellers could compare, check prices and read what other guests had experienced.

Today many travellers use several sources side by side, each with its own role:

• Search engines and maps are often the starting point: where is the hotel, what’s nearby?
• Booking platforms bring together availability, prices and reviews, and handle the booking.
• Social networks provide inspiration – often before a destination has even been chosen.
• Video platforms offer a way to look at a hotel in more depth.
• Hotel websites remain the source for official information and direct bookings.

Not everyone goes about it the same way. Some book after two clicks, others research for weeks, and others still rely on a travel agent. Videos don’t replace booking platforms – they complete the picture.

Why travellers want to know as much as possible before booking

For many people, booking a hotel is a decision that carries weight. It involves money, limited holiday days and expectations that build up over weeks. At the same time, you can’t try out a hotel in advance. Information helps reduce that uncertainty: How big is the room? How loud is the street? Does the atmosphere match what I’m looking for?

Which information matters varies a great deal. Families look for different things than business travellers, design lovers for different things than beach holidaymakers. Good digital travel planning therefore isn’t about reading as much as possible, but about finding the right information.

Short video, hotel tour, 360°: explore a hotel online

Visual formats make a hotel easier to picture, but they do different jobs.

Short videos

Vertical reels and shorts work well for inspiration. In a few seconds they convey mood: the view from the balcony, the light by the pool, breakfast on the terrace. For a well-founded decision they’re usually not enough, because they deliberately show only fragments.

In-depth hotel tours

Landscape hotel videos show how things connect: routes, proportions, sounds, the transition from room to restaurant. They’re especially suited to the phase just before booking, when travellers want to examine a hotel more closely.

360° content and virtual tours

360° imagery, familiar from Google Maps for example, lets users decide where to look. That gives a good sense of space. What’s often missing is movement, sound and the mood at different times of day.

These formats don’t compete with each other. Together they give a fuller picture than any of them alone.

Mobile first: how the smartphone shapes travel planning

Inspiration often strikes on the go: on the train, during a lunch break, on the sofa. That affects formats. Vertical videos suit the smartphone; long texts and fiddly photo galleries less so.

Search engines have adapted too. In 2023, Google announced that its move to mobile-first indexing was complete: websites are primarily crawled and evaluated in their mobile version [1]. For hotels, that means a website that loads slowly or is confusing on a smartphone is wasting potential – however good it looks on a desktop.

Artificial intelligence: what already exists – and what’s emerging

Already established

Personalised recommendations aren’t new: booking platforms have used algorithms to sort their results for years. What’s new are AI assistants that let travellers plan in everyday language. Booking.com launched an AI trip planner in a test phase in 2023 [2], and Expedia introduced its assistant Romie as an early test version in 2024 [3]. In late 2025, Google added new travel planning features to the AI Mode of its search, initially in the US [4].

Still developing

Google has also announced that users should eventually be able to book flights and hotels directly in AI Mode, together with travel industry partners [4]. Whether and when that will be widely available, and how travellers will take to it, remains open. It’s also conceivable that AI assistants will draw more on videos and walkthroughs when suggesting hotels – a possible development, not a firm forecast.

One thing already holds true: AI recommendations are only as good as the information they’re based on. Current, verifiable and honest content remains the foundation – for people and machines alike.

Opportunities and challenges of digitalisation in hospitality

The opportunities

• Travellers can explore a hotel online before booking and set more realistic expectations.
• Hotels can show atmosphere and special features that get lost in text and single images.
• Smaller, independent properties also have the chance to become visible with good content – not only big brands with big budgets.

The challenges

• Keeping content current: a video from before the renovation can confuse more than it helps. Content needs maintenance.
• Unrealistic portrayals: filters, heavy editing or AI-generated images can create expectations that aren’t met on site.
• Data protection: personalised recommendations rely on data. In the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation sets the framework; what matters is transparency about which data is used and for what.
• Credibility of reviews: since May 2022, businesses in the EU that give access to consumer reviews must state whether and how they check that those reviews come from genuine customers. Fake reviews are prohibited [5].
• Information overload: more sources don’t automatically lead to better decisions.

That’s exactly why authentic content, transparency and verifiable information remain important – whatever technology happens to be new.

The role of Hotelmoments

Hotelmoments sees itself as part of visual hotel discovery. We spend several nights at a hotel and show it in in-depth hotel tours on YouTube the way guests experience it, complemented by short clips for social media. Our tours aren’t meant to replace booking platforms. They’re meant to provide what is often missing there: a coherent, honest impression. On our website, every tour has its own hotel page with the video and a direct booking link.

Conclusion: seeing remains part of the decision

Digital travel planning has changed dramatically, from catalogues to platforms to AI assistants, and it keeps changing. Exactly where it’s heading can’t be reliably predicted. Our assessment: the wish to really see a hotel before booking will remain – whether the search starts on a platform, a search engine or an AI assistant. Hotel videos and walkthroughs can help, as long as they’re current, honest and easy to find.

If you’d like to discover hotels visually today, take a look at our hotel tours. Hotels that would like to be presented can reach us via our contact form.

Sources

1. Google Search Central: Mobile-first indexing has landed – thanks for all your support (31 October 2023)
2. Booking Holdings: Booking.com Launches New AI Trip Planner to Enhance Travel Planning Experience (June 2023)
3. Expedia Group: Spring Product Release 2024 (May 2024)
4. Google: Explore new ways to plan and book travel with AI in Search (17 November 2025)
5. EUR-Lex: Directive (EU) 2019/2161 (“Omnibus Directive”)