Your next guest may never see a page of blue links. They ask an assistant — "where should we eat in Morzine after skiing?" — and act on the handful of names it returns. Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) is the work of being one of those names.
Traditional SEO aimed to rank a page. AEO aims to be quoted — to give AI models clean, trustworthy, machine-readable facts about your business so they recommend you with confidence.
Why this matters in the mountains
Alpine hospitality is high-intent and seasonal. A family planning a week in the Portes du Soleil does months of research, much of it now mediated by an assistant. If the model doesn't know your opening hours, your dishes, or that you take dogs, it quietly recommends the chalet that does.
What AI models actually need
Assistants favour businesses whose facts are consistent, structured and corroborated across the web:
- One canonical source of truth. Your name, address, phone and hours, identical on your site, Google Business Profile and the directories that matter.
- Structured data.
LocalBusiness,RestaurantorLodgingBusinessschema so a crawler reads your details as data, not decoration. - Plain-language answers. Real questions as headings — Do you have parking? Is there a vegetarian menu? How far from the lift? — answered directly underneath.
- Corroboration. Reviews, listings and mentions that repeat the same facts. Models trust what the web agrees on.
A simple first move
Write down the ten questions guests ask you most, and answer each in two sentences on your site. That single page does double duty: it reassures human visitors and it feeds assistants exactly the snippets they reach for.
AEO isn't a trick. It's making your business legible to the systems your guests already trust — and doing it before the chalet down the valley does.