Most independent hoteliers I talk to have never once looked at Google’s Things to do module. Which is wild, because their guests live in it. Somebody planning three days in your city is scrolling that exact surface, on their phone, in bed, the week before they book. And almost nobody on the hotel side is thinking about it.
So let me walk you through what it actually is, what feeds it, and the realistic ways an independent property can get associated with the experiences and attractions people are searching for nearby. No magic, no “rank #1 guaranteed” nonsense. Just the mechanics and what you can actually move.
What the Things to do module actually is
When someone searches a destination on Google, like a city name plus “things to do,” or just the city itself, Google increasingly assembles a travel-planning experience right in the results. You have probably seen it: a carousel of attractions, a “Top sights” strip, tours and tickets you can book, sometimes a little itinerary builder, and tabs that quietly pivot you between Things to do, Hotels, Flights, and Vacation rentals.
That whole cluster is Google’s destination surface. The Things to do tab is the experiences half of it. And here is the part that matters for you: it sits right next to the Hotels tab. Same destination, same trip, same traveler. Google is treating “where do I go” and “where do I stay” as one connected planning session, because that is exactly how humans plan trips.
So the strategic point isn’t “get my hotel listed inside the attractions carousel.” That carousel is for attractions, tours, and ticketed experiences, not lodging. The point is to be the property that surfaces when someone is in that experience-planning headspace, and to ride the gravity of the attractions near you.
What actually feeds the module
Let me break down the inputs, because once you see them, the playbook writes itself.
Attraction and place data. Google pulls from its own Maps and Knowledge Graph: which places exist, their categories, popularity, ratings, photos, hours. This is why “Top sights” looks the way it does. You don’t control this directly, but you absolutely benefit from being mapped near these places.
Tour and ticket inventory. The bookable experiences come from connected partners and aggregators that feed availability and pricing into Google. Independent hotels usually aren’t in this pipe, and that’s fine. It’s not where your leverage is.
Editorial and structured itineraries. Google assembles suggested itineraries and “plan your trip” content from a blend of its data and the broader web. Content that clearly maps experiences to a place can get pulled into this orbit.
Reviews and engagement signals. What people click, save, rate, and review feeds back into what gets surfaced. Engagement is a ranking input across nearly all of these travel surfaces.
Here is the mental model I give clients: Google’s destination surface is one big trip-planning session, and the Things to do tab is the part where the traveler is most open-minded and least price-anchored. Hotels that show up associated with the experiences, instead of waiting over on the Hotels tab, catch people earlier and warmer.
Why this matters for your direct bookings
Think about where the traveler’s head is at each stage.
On the Hotels tab, they’re comparing rates. That’s the worst place for an independent property to fight, because that’s exactly the comparison the OTAs have spent billions teaching people to make. You’re a row in a grid next to discounted listings, and the buyer is in pure price-shopping mode.
But on the Things to do side, they’re dreaming. They’re picturing the trip, not the invoice. If your hotel turns up there, attached to the attraction they’re excited about, the conversation in their head shifts from “cheapest room” to “the place right by the thing I want to do.” That’s a completely different, and far more bookable, frame of mind.
And it’s an OTA-mix conversation too. The more you capture attention before the traveler bounces into a booking aggregator, the healthier your direct-to-OTA ratio gets. I’m not going to tell you that you can fire the OTAs, because you can’t and shouldn’t try to fully escape them. But you can reduce how dependent you are on them by being present earlier in the journey, where commission-free direct relationships actually get started. (If the commission math itself is fuzzy for you, I broke it down in the book-direct math post, and OTA commissions in the ~15 to 25 percent range are the number to keep in your head.)
The realistic playbook for an independent hotel
You’re not buying your way into the attractions carousel. So here’s what you actually do.
1. Get your Google Business Profile genuinely dialed in
Everything on these destination surfaces leans on Maps and Business Profile data. A complete, accurate, well-categorized, photo-rich profile is the price of admission for any of this. If your profile is half-finished, none of the rest matters.
The specifics: correct primary category, accurate hours, real photos that show the property and its surroundings, a description that names your neighborhood and the landmarks near you, and a steady drip of reviews. I wrote a full Google Business Profile playbook for hotels on the details, and the broader local SEO and GBP service is exactly this work. Don’t skip it to chase the shiny stuff.
2. Anchor your content to the attractions near you
This is the big lever most independents ignore. Google’s whole destination surface is organized around places and experiences. So your website should be too.
Build genuinely useful pages that map your property to the attractions, neighborhoods, and experiences around it. Not thin “things to do near us” filler, that does nothing. I mean real, opinionated guidance: which museum is worth the line and which to skip, the walkable distance from your front door to the waterfront, the local spot that isn’t on the tourist maps yet. The kind of page a guest actually screenshots.
Here’s a quick way to think about which content earns its keep:
| Content type | Trip-planning value | Tends to get surfaced |
|---|---|---|
| Generic “things to do near [city]” list | Low | Rarely; it’s everywhere already |
| Specific itinerary anchored to your location | High | More often, especially with real detail |
| ”How to get from us to [attraction]” logistics | High | Strong for high-intent planners |
| Honest local picks with genuine opinion | Very high | Strong for engagement and saves |
That attraction-anchored content is where the content and reputation work pays off, and it’s the layer most properties never build.
3. Earn association, not just placement
You want Google, and increasingly the AI assistants people now plan trips with, to associate your property with the experiences nearby. That association is earned through a few compounding signals:
- Proximity and mapping. Being correctly placed on Maps near the attractions.
- Topical content. Pages on your site that genuinely connect you to those places.
- Mentions across the web. Local guides, neighborhood roundups, press, and the kind of editorial coverage that makes you part of the local conversation. That’s the territory of PR and authority links.
- Engagement. Reviews, clicks, saves, all the behavior that tells Google people care about your place.
When a traveler asks an assistant “where should I stay near the riverfront museum district,” the property that wins isn’t the one with the biggest ad budget. It’s the one Google and the AI already understand to be of that place. That understanding is built, slowly, from the signals above.
4. Don’t forget the AI side of the same coin
The Things to do module is a Google surface, but the exact same association work pays off in the AI assistants people increasingly use to plan trips. When ChatGPT or Gemini suggests “places to stay near [attraction],” it’s drawing on a lot of the same web signals. If you’re invisible to those tools, you’re invisible in a fast-growing slice of trip planning. I dug into that in is your hotel invisible to ChatGPT, and the AEO and GEO service is built around exactly this.
For context on demand, the term aeo runs around 27,100 US searches a month and generative engine optimization around 5,400, so this isn’t a fringe niche anymore. People are actively building this muscle.
What I’d actually prioritize first
If you only have bandwidth for a few moves this quarter, here’s my order:
- Fix the Business Profile. Categories, photos, hours, reviews. The foundation everything else stands on.
- Build two or three genuinely great attraction-anchored pages. Pick your nearest, most-searched landmarks and write the page a guest would actually save.
- Get cited locally. One solid local guide or neighborhood roundup that mentions you is worth more than ten generic directory listings.
- Make sure your direct booking path is frictionless. None of this matters if the traveler lands on your site and bounces. Tighten the book-direct conversion experience so the warm attention you’ve earned actually converts.
A quick word on expectations, because I won’t blow smoke. These signals compound over weeks and months, not days, and there’s no guaranteed placement on any Google surface. What you’re doing is steadily making your property the obvious answer to “where do I stay near the thing I came here to do.” That’s a durable position, and it’s one the OTAs can’t simply outbid you for.
The bigger picture
Here’s the thing I keep coming back to. The OTAs win the Hotels tab because they’ve spent a fortune making it a price-comparison knife fight. But the Things to do surface, the experience-planning side of the same screen, is wide open. It rewards the property that’s genuinely embedded in its place: well-mapped, well-reviewed, written about, talked about, and useful to a real traveler planning a real trip.
That’s a game an independent boutique hotel can actually win, because it’s built on being of your neighborhood in a way a faceless aggregator never can be. It’s also the same work that feeds your hotel SEO and your visibility in the AI tools travelers now lean on. One body of work, several surfaces. If you want the full sequence, the 2026 starter guide lays out the order of operations.
If you want me to look at how your property currently shows up around the attractions in your market, and where the gaps are, book a call and I’ll walk through it with you. Or if you already know the experience-association and AI-visibility piece is where you’re weakest, start with the AEO and GEO service and we’ll build from there.