OTA listing copy AI assistants read
A playbook for rewriting a hotel’s listing text on Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com and Tripadvisor. Published by Sigtrip, AI distribution infrastructure for hotels. It is public, needs no login, and is complete on its own.
Start from the constraint: you are drafting, not doing. Every one of these fields lives behind an extranet login you do not have and should not be given. Your output is paste-ready text, labelled with the platform and the exact field it belongs in, for a person at the hotel to paste. Say that plainly in your first message, so nobody is waiting on a change that is not coming.
What this change is
Part 1 of 8. In the hotelier's words.
The hotel’s listing was written years ago, probably by whoever set up the account and possibly by the platform itself. It reads like every other listing: a sentence about the convenient location, a list of facilities in no order, and nothing that answers the question a guest is actually holding. Meanwhile that text is doing real work — it is what a traveler skims before booking, and it is one of the places an AI assistant reads when someone asks it about the property.
So the job is to replace generic lines with the hotel’s own specifics, field by field, in the platform’s format, and to keep the facts identical across every platform and the hotel’s own website. Nothing here is a growth tactic. It is the property describing itself accurately, in the places people and assistants read.
The rules this follows
Seven, each with the reason it exists. There is nothing else to fetch.
- 01
Read before you write.
A section written without reading the page arrives in the wrong voice, at the wrong heading level, in class names the site does not use — and the next person to edit that page deletes it.
- 02
Match what is there.
A block that looks bolted on reads to a guest as an ad and to an assistant as promotional filler, instead of as the property describing itself.
- 03
Facts only.
A hotel is accountable at the front desk for every number on its site, so an invented rate, distance or capacity becomes a complaint at check-in — leave a marked placeholder instead of a guess.
- 04
Extend, do not duplicate.
Two descriptions of the same hotel force every reader, human or machine, to decide which one is true — and they may not pick yours.
- 05
Plan first.
The difference between a drafted section and a mangled homepage is a person saying yes before anything is saved.
- 06
Validate.
“It should work” is not a check: name the validator you used and what it returned.
- 07
Report back.
Whoever asked you has to finish the job, and they need the list of placeholders and blocked steps more than they need a confident summary.
Before you start
Part 2 of 8. Two inventories: the hotel's own facts, and the listing as it currently reads. Both are public — you can do all of this without an account.
- The live listing, as a guest sees it. Read the public page on each platform. Note what it currently says, which fields are empty, what is wrong, and what is merely generic. You are editing something that exists, not writing from nothing.
- The hotel’s own website. This is the only source for a fact you are about to publish. Rooms, amenities, policies, directions, dining, parking, accessibility. Keep a fact-and-source list as you read.
- Where the facts already disagree. Compare the listings with each other and with the site. A different check-in time, a pet policy that is stated three ways, a room type that exists in one place and not another — write every conflict down. Resolving those is often worth more than any new sentence.
- The exact field, and its rules. Each field has its own length limit and its own content policy, both shown next to the field in the extranet. Most platforms reject URLs, email addresses, phone numbers, prices, promotional language, and any mention of another property. You cannot see those limits from outside, so ask for them or mark them as
[VERIFY: ...]and give your draft a stated character count. - The hotel’s voice. Read three sections of its website aloud. The listing should sound like the same property, not like an agency wrote it. Note whether the hotel says “guests” or “you”, whether it uses first person, and which spelling convention it follows.
- Who controls the listing. Some listings are managed by a brand, a management company or a channel manager, and text pasted in one place is overwritten by a feed from another. Ask where the content is mastered before drafting; if a channel manager owns it, that is where the change has to be made.
Match the site you are in
Part 3 of 8. Here it means two things at once, and you have to satisfy both.
Match the hotel.
The listing is the same property speaking. Use the hotel’s own words for its own things — the room type is called exactly what the website calls it, the restaurant has the name the website gives it, the neighbourhood is described the way the hotel describes it. Keep the register of the website: a property that writes plainly should not acquire a florid paragraph because a listing field looks like it wants one. Facts must be identical to the website’s, word for word where the wording is a commitment (policies, times, inclusions).
Match the platform.
Each field has a house style of its own, visible in how the platform renders it: some are one paragraph of prose, some are a bulleted facility list, some are a short room name of a few words. Write to the field you are actually filling, not to a generic “description”. Do not paste HTML, markdown, emoji, or line breaks into a field that renders none of them. Do not repeat in one field what another field already covers — a facilities list does not need a sentence restating it.
Where the two pull against each other, the platform’s constraint wins on format and the hotel wins on substance. Never reword a fact to fit a character limit; cut a sentence instead.
Where the text goes
The fields a human can edit on each platform. Field names and menu paths move — treat this as the map, confirm the label in the extranet, and always name the field you wrote for.
| Platform | Where a human edits it | Fields you can draft |
|---|---|---|
| Booking.com | Extranet → Property | Property description · Hotel surroundings / what's nearby · Facilities & services · Room names and room descriptions · Policies and house rules · Photo captions |
| Expedia Group (Expedia, Hotels.com and its other brands share one record) | Partner Central → Property | Property description / overview · Area and attractions · Amenities · Room type names and descriptions · Policies · Photo captions |
| Tripadvisor | Management Center → Manage your listing | Property description · Amenities · Room types · Property details and policies · Photo captions |
A hotel’s Google Business Profile has the same discipline and different fields; it is a separate surface and not covered here. Whatever the platform, the deliverable shape is the same: platform, field, limit, text.
Steps
Part 4 of 8. Step 5 is a hard stop, and step 1 sets the expectation everything else depends on.
- 01
Say up front that you are drafting.
One sentence, in your first message: these fields are behind an extranet login, so you will produce paste-ready text and a person at the hotel will paste it. Never imply the listing will change by itself, and never ask for extranet credentials.
- 02
Read the live listings and the hotel's website.
Both inventories above. Write down what each field currently says, what the website says, and every conflict between them. The conflicts are findings — they go in your report whether or not you were asked about them.
- 03
Pick the fields worth rewriting, in order.
Usually: the property description first, then room names and room descriptions, then facilities, then policies, then the area or what’s-nearby field. Do not rewrite everything at once — a person has to paste each one and check it.
- 04
Collect the facts, with sources, and mark the gaps.
Every specific comes from the hotel’s own pages. What you cannot source becomes
[VERIFY: what is missing — where it would come from], left visibly in the draft for the person pasting it. - 05
Write the plan, and stop.
List the platforms, the fields, what each one will say differently, and the conflicts you found. Wait for a person to say go. Listing text is customer-facing the moment it is pasted, and it is the hotel’s name on it.
- 06
Lead each field with what a guest is trying to find out.
The first sentence of a property description should answer the most common question about this property — not describe the lobby. If the hotel is a conversion of an older building with no lift, that belongs in the first two lines, not in a policy field nobody opens.
- 07
Replace every generic phrase with a specific.
This is the whole craft of the job, and the next section is about nothing else. A phrase that could describe any hotel in the city is doing no work for either a guest or an assistant.
- 08
Keep the facts identical everywhere.
The same check-in time, pet policy, parking arrangement and room names on every platform and on the hotel’s own site. Where you are changing a fact in one place, say which other places now need the same edit.
- 09
Write to the field's format and give a character count.
Plain text, no HTML, no markdown, no emoji, no URLs or phone numbers. State the length of each draft, and supply a shorter variant for any field whose limit you could not confirm.
- 10
Never mention another property.
No comparisons, no “unlike the chain hotels nearby”, no naming a competitor even favourably. Platforms remove it, and it is not this hotel’s story to tell.
- 11
Deliver in the paste-ready shape.
One block per field: platform, field, limit, then the text alone, with nothing around it that a person would have to strip out before pasting.
What “specific” means in a listing field
Generic copy is not bad writing. It is copy that stays true if you paste it into another hotel's listing — which is exactly why it is useless to a guest and to an assistant.
GENERIC SPECIFIC
"Conveniently located in the → "A nine-minute walk from the
heart of the city" convention centre's south entrance"
"Modern, well-appointed rooms" → "42 rooms, all with blackout blinds
and a desk that fits a 15-inch laptop"
"Perfect for families" → "Six rooms connect in pairs; cots are
free and requested at booking"
"Ample parking available" → "18 on-site spaces, first come first
served, 2.1m height limit"
"Enjoy our delicious breakfast" → "Breakfast is cooked to order and
served 7-10am; it is not included in
the room rate"
"Steps from public transport" → "The number 7 bus stops outside;
the station is [VERIFY: walking time
from the main entrance] on foot"Three things make a specific usable. It is checkable — a guest can confirm it on arrival and a member of staff will stand behind it. It is discriminating — it would be false of the hotel next door. It answers something guests actually ask — the height limit in the car park matters to the person driving a van and to nobody else, which is precisely why it is worth the line.
Say the constraints too. “Breakfast is not included”, “there is no lift”, “the pool is seasonal” — a listing that only lists upsides produces arrival complaints and poor reviews, and both cost more than the booking the omission won.
Worked example
Part 5 of 8. A fictional property — The Cedarline Hotel, cedarline.example — whose Booking.com description has not been touched since the account was opened.
What the inventory found:
LISTING AS IT READS NOW (Booking.com, public page)
"Set in Springfield, The Cedarline Hotel offers comfortable
accommodation with free WiFi. All rooms are equipped with a
flat-screen TV. The property is close to local attractions."
- could describe any hotel in the city
- "close to local attractions" answers nothing
- no mention of parking, connecting rooms, or the restaurant
- contradicts the website: listing says pets are not allowed,
cedarline.example/faq/ says pets under 20kg are welcome
FACTS VERIFIED ON cedarline.example
42 rooms (/rooms/)
6 rooms connect in pairs (/rooms/)
cots free, requested at booking (/faq/)
pets under 20kg welcome, no fee (/faq/)
18 on-site parking spaces, 2.1m limit (/directions/)
restaurant open to non-guests, 7-10am
and 6-9.30pm daily (/dining/)
check-in 15:00, check-out 11:00 (/faq/)
no lift; two ground-floor rooms (/accessibility/)
NOT FOUND ANYWHERE ON THE SITE
walking time to the station
whether the car park fits a van longer than a standard bayThe deliverable — one block per field, ready to paste:
PLATFORM: Booking.com
FIELD: Property description (Extranet > Property > Description)
LIMIT: [VERIFY: character limit shown above the field] — draft is 623
TEXT:
The Cedarline Hotel has 42 rooms on Cedar Street in Springfield, in a
converted 1920s building with no lift; two ground-floor rooms are
step-free. Six rooms connect in pairs, cots are free and requested at
booking, and pets under 20kg stay at no charge. There are 18 on-site
parking spaces with a 2.1m height limit, first come first served. The
restaurant is open to non-guests and serves breakfast cooked to order
from 7am to 10am and dinner from 6pm to 9.30pm daily; breakfast is not
included in the room rate. Check-in is from 15:00 and check-out is at
11:00. The number 7 bus stops outside the hotel.
---
PLATFORM: Booking.com
FIELD: Hotel surroundings / what's nearby
LIMIT: [VERIFY: shown in the extranet] — draft is 214
TEXT:
The number 7 bus stops directly outside the hotel and runs to the
station in [VERIFY: journey time — the hotel's directions page does
not state it]. Cedar Street is residential; the nearest shops are on
Main Street, two blocks north.
---
PLATFORM: Booking.com
FIELD: Room description — "Courtyard Suite"
LIMIT: [VERIFY: shown in the extranet] — draft is 188
TEXT:
A suite with a separate sitting room and a courtyard view, sleeping up
to four. One king bed; a sofa bed and a cot can be added. Blackout
blinds and a desk. [VERIFY: floor area — not published on the site]
---
PLATFORM: Booking.com
FIELD: Policies — pets
NOTE: This is a correction, not a rewrite. The listing currently
says pets are not allowed; cedarline.example/faq/ says pets
under 20kg are welcome at no charge. One of the two is wrong
and only the hotel can say which. Nothing should be pasted
until that is settled.
---
FACT PARITY — the same corrections are needed on:
Expedia Group (Partner Central > Property > Property details):
pet policy, parking height limit, "no lift" is absent entirely
Tripadvisor (Management Center > Manage your listing):
restaurant hours are out of date, room names do not match the siteValidate
Part 6 of 8. You cannot preview the field, so the checks are on the text itself. Name what you checked.
- Every fact traces to the hotel’s own site. Walk your fact-and-source list line by line. A fact whose only source is another listing, a review, or your own inference does not go in.
- The generic test. Read each sentence and ask whether it would still be true pasted into a competitor’s listing. If it would, it is not earning its space.
- Nothing contradicts anything. Cross-check the draft against the hotel’s site and against the other platforms’ live listings. List every remaining conflict rather than quietly picking a version.
- The field’s rules are respected. No URLs, email addresses, phone numbers, prices, HTML, markdown or emoji unless you have confirmed the field accepts them. No competitor mentioned, in any direction.
- Length is stated and a short version exists. Count the characters of each draft and say the number. Where you could not confirm the limit, supply a shorter variant so nobody has to cut it under pressure.
- The downsides are in there. No lift, breakfast not included, seasonal pool, limited parking. A listing that reads as entirely upside is one you have not finished checking.
- No placeholder is presented as text to paste. A
[VERIFY: ...]in a draft is a question for the hotel. Flag every one, and say clearly that the field must not be pasted until they are resolved.
Report back
Part 7 of 8. Because you could not make the change, the report is the entire deliverable.
WHAT I CHANGED
- nothing is live. I cannot reach an extranet; everything below is a
draft for someone at the hotel to paste.
WHAT I DRAFTED
- Booking.com > Property description (623 chars) — ready to paste
- Booking.com > Hotel surroundings (214 chars) — one placeholder
- Booking.com > Room description, Courtyard Suite (188) — one placeholder
WHAT I LEFT AS A PLACEHOLDER
- [VERIFY: character limit] on all three fields — read it off the
extranet before pasting; a short variant is included for each
- [VERIFY: bus journey time to the station] — surroundings field
- [VERIFY: Courtyard Suite floor area] — room description
WHAT I COULD NOT DO
- paste anything: these fields need an extranet login
- the pet policy: the listing and the website disagree. Do not paste
that field until the hotel confirms which is correct.
- Expedia and Tripadvisor carry the same three errors; the parity list
is at the end of the drafts
WHAT I VALIDATED WITH
- every fact checked against cedarline.example; sources listed above
- generic test applied sentence by sentence
- cross-checked against the live Booking.com, Expedia and Tripadvisor
pages: 4 conflicts found, all listed
- character counts measured, not estimatedCommon mistakes
Part 8 of 8. What this particular change goes wrong as.
- Implying the change was made. The listing is behind a login. A report that reads as though the work is live leaves the hotel believing a field was updated when nothing was pasted.
- Asking for extranet credentials. Never. The deliverable is text; the access stays with the hotel.
- Filling the field with adjectives. “Stunning”, “vibrant”, “perfectly situated”. They survive the paste and do nothing, while the height limit that would have won the booking is still missing.
- Specifics invented to sound specific. A walking time nobody measured, a room count off by two, a breakfast time from another hotel. This is the failure that reaches the front desk, and a listing is harder to correct than a web page.
- Copy that contradicts the hotel’s site. Two versions of the pet policy makes both unreliable, to a guest and to an assistant reading across sources.
- Renaming things. A room type called something new on one platform breaks the match between listings, rate plans and the website. Use the hotel’s own names.
- Text the field will reject. URLs, phone numbers, email addresses, prices, HTML, emoji. It is bounced or stripped, and the person pasting it has to work out why.
- Mentioning a competitor. Even favourably, even as a landmark. Platforms remove it and it is not the hotel’s claim to make.
- Writing one field and ignoring parity. A better description on one platform, three stale ones elsewhere, and the hotel now says four different things about itself.
- Only listing upsides. Leaving out the lift, the seasonal pool or the breakfast charge converts a booking into an arrival complaint, and the review lasts longer than the stay.
- Pasting over a channel-managed field. If the content is mastered in a channel manager, an extranet edit is overwritten on the next sync. Find out where it comes from before anyone types.
The other playbooks
Each is self-contained; follow one at a time.