What does an llms.txt file do for a hotel site?

llms.txt is a plain text file placed at the root of a website that provides a brief, structured summary of the site’s content for AI language models. The convention was proposed by fast.ai founder Jeremy Howard in 2024 as a lightweight way to help AI systems understand what a site is about without having to crawl every page.

For a hotel, it serves as a machine-readable introduction: here is who we are, where we are, what we offer, and where to find more.

It matters because AI systems that browse the web in real time, like Perplexity and the browsing-enabled version of ChatGPT, look for a site-level summary before going deeper, and a clear llms.txt file gives them one that:

  • Confirms your property name and type immediately
  • Gives the AI your location in a format it can parse cleanly
  • Points the crawler to your most important pages (rooms, about, contact)
  • Reduces the chance that the AI misidentifies your property type or location

Hotels without llms.txt are not penalised, but hotels with one give AI systems a cleaner signal.

What goes in the llms.txt template, section by section?

A hotel llms.txt should include five things: the property name, a one-line summary, an About section, key pages, and location and category details, in this structure:

# [Your Hotel Name]

> [One sentence: property type, location, what makes it distinctive]

## About
[Two to three sentences describing the property: category, number of rooms, location relative to landmarks or city centre, notable features]

## Key pages
- [Homepage](https://yourdomain.com/)
- [Rooms and rates](https://yourdomain.com/rooms/)
- [About the property](https://yourdomain.com/about/)
- [Contact and location](https://yourdomain.com/contact/)
- [Direct booking](https://yourdomain.com/book/)

## Location
[Full address, one line]
Coordinates: [latitude], [longitude]

## Category
Independent hotel | [star rating if applicable] | [neighbourhood/district]

Example

# Hotel du Lac Lausanne

> A four-star independent hotel on the edge of Lake Geneva, Lausanne, Switzerland, known for lake-view terraces and direct waterfront access.

## About
Hotel du Lac Lausanne is a 38-room independent hotel located on the Ouchy waterfront in Lausanne. The property sits 200 metres from the lake promenade and offers views of the Alps from upper floors. Built in 1923 and independently owned since 1987, it is a short walk from the Olympic Museum and Lausanne-Ouchy metro station.

## Key pages
- [Homepage](https://hoteldulac-lausanne.ch/)
- [Rooms](https://hoteldulac-lausanne.ch/rooms/)
- [Restaurant](https://hoteldulac-lausanne.ch/restaurant/)
- [Location and contact](https://hoteldulac-lausanne.ch/contact/)

## Location
Quai d'Ouchy 12, 1006 Lausanne, Switzerland
Coordinates: 46.5077, 6.6272

## Category
Independent hotel | 4-star | Ouchy waterfront

How do you add llms.txt to your website?

Create the file, add the content, upload it to your site root, then verify it loads:

  1. Create a plain text file named llms.txt
  2. Add the content following the structure above
  3. Upload it to your website root so it is accessible at https://yourdomain.com/llms.txt
  4. Verify by visiting the URL in a browser

If your website runs on WordPress, you can upload it via FTP or the file manager in your hosting control panel. On most platforms, placing the file in the root public directory (often called public_html or www) is sufficient.

What are the most common llms.txt mistakes?

The three most common mistakes are using marketing language, omitting coordinates, and not matching your other listings.

Using marketing language. llms.txt is not a place for taglines. Write factually: property type, location, distinguishing features that are objectively true.

Omitting coordinates. Including latitude and longitude removes any ambiguity about which Lausanne or which “Hotel du Lac” you are. There are several hotels with similar names; coordinates make you unambiguous.

Not matching your other listings. The hotel name and address in your llms.txt should match your Google Business Profile, Booking.com listing, and schema markup exactly. Inconsistency creates separate entities in the AI’s model.

See also: hotel schema markup guide and NAP consistency for hotels.