How many hotels are invisible in AI search?

The claim that 94% of hotels are invisible in AI search is the most repeated statistic in this field. It is attributed, in different places, to a Cornell study with Curacity and to Cvent. It appears in at least two incompatible forms: that 94% of hotels do not appear in AI answers, and that 94% lack the structured data needed to appear. Those are different claims requiring different measurements.

We went to the primary. The research page it is attributed to carries a headline, partner logos and a request-a-demo button, and no figures, no sample and no method. The underlying report is not published. One number, two attributions, two meanings, no retrievable method.

So this dataset does not carry it, and the absence is the point. A figure that cannot be traced is not a weaker version of a figure that can; it is a different kind of object, and repeating it is how it becomes true by circulation.

What can be said is narrower and duller. In the one published citation audit, intermediaries held the majority of hotel citations, which means many individual properties were not cited in their own right. That is a measurement of one model in one city in one month, and it does not license a global percentage.