Wikivoyage for accommodation: can your hotel appear in the "Sleep" section?

Updated: 10 November 2026

Wikivoyage is the free travel guide of the Wikimedia Foundation, the same organisation that hosts Wikipedia. Its destination articles have a "Sleep" section listing places to stay. An independent hotel can appear there, but under strict rules: it is a guide written by volunteers, not an advertising showcase. This guide sums up what we could check on 10 November 2026 on Wikivoyage's policy pages in Italian, on Wikimedia's Meta-Wiki and in other sources, and clearly flags what we could not confirm.

The short answer

The essentials:

Yes, a hotel can appear in a destination's "Sleep" section, with objective details: name, address, coordinates, website, price and a neutral description.
Advertising is not allowed: the Italian policy "Wikivoyage:Niente propaganda" says anything that looks like an advertisement will be deleted.
If you are paid by or work for the hotel, Wikimedia's Terms of Use have required you to disclose it when editing since 2014.
There is no guarantee that an AI assistant will use or cite your Wikivoyage listing.

What Wikivoyage is and which languages exist

What we could confirm:

According to Meta-Wiki, Wikivoyage was officially launched on Wikimedia Foundation servers on 15 January 2013.
Its content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence (CC BY-SA). Creative Commons announced in June 2023 that Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects had adopted version 4.0; it does not name Wikivoyage explicitly.
There are Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Greek editions: all four appear in Meta-Wiki's table of editions (the Greek one since August 2013).
According to Wikipedia's article on Wikivoyage, there were Wikivoyage sites in 27 languages in October 2025.
Each edition has its own rules, written by its community. We quote the Italian one, the only one we could read.

The rule against touting

What "Wikivoyage:Niente propaganda" says (Italian edition):

Do not use a username that identifies your business.
Anything that looks like an advertisement will be deleted. Never write "the best", "the biggest" or similar.
Do not delete your competitors' listings or negative comments others have left about your business.
Do not add your business more than once in the same destination. One website per place, with no referral codes in links.
The English edition has an equivalent policy ("Don't tout") and a welcome page for tourism professionals, but we could not open them: we do not quote their text.

Conflict of interest and paid editing

What is confirmed:

Since 16 June 2014 Wikimedia's Terms of Use require you to disclose your employer, client and affiliation for any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation.
The disclosure can go on your user page, on the talk page accompanying the edit or in the edit summary. Each project may adopt an alternative policy.
A hotelier editing about their own hotel has an obvious conflict of interest. We have not confirmed whether Wikivoyage has its own conflict of interest policy with extra rules.

What an accommodation listing looks like

Template fields, according to "Wikivoyage:Listing" (Italian edition):

Required: name and address.
Recommended: phone number with international prefix, official website, room price, coordinates (decimal latitude and longitude) and a description.
Optional: alternative name, directions, email, check-in and check-out times, and a Wikidata code.
The same page reminds readers that Wikivoyage is a travel guide, not the Yellow Pages, and that lists usually have 5 to 9 entries: not every hotel in a destination fits.
Our recommendation: a short, verifiable description (location, type of property, number of rooms, something distinctive that can be checked), with no sales adjectives.

What happens if your listing is deleted

According to the Italian policy:

Edits that look like advertising are removed, and repeated violations can lead to the account being blocked.
If you disagree, do not keep re-adding the listing: raise it on the article's talk page.
We have not confirmed specific review times or procedures in other editions.

Why it matters for AI

Confirmed and not confirmed:

In November 2025 the Wikimedia Foundation asked AI companies to cite their sources and use its paid API, Wikimedia Enterprise, and noted that bots use Wikipedia at scale for training (according to Techzine, 11-11-2025).
That statement is about Wikipedia and does not mention Wikivoyage.
Not confirmed: that Wikivoyage texts are in the training data of any specific model, or that AI assistants cite the "Sleep" section. The free licence allows reuse with attribution, but that does not prove it is used.
Nobody can guarantee that an AI assistant will recommend your hotel because it is on Wikivoyage.

What we recommend

An honest recommendation:

Check whether your destination has a Wikivoyage article, in your language and in English, and whether your hotel already appears under "Sleep".
If it is missing or has wrong details, you can add or correct objective details only (name, address, coordinates, website, price) with a neutral description, disclosing your link to the hotel.
The most prudent option: ask on the article's talk page and let the volunteers decide.
No promotion, no superlatives, no touching competitors.
iQuota does not edit Wikivoyage on behalf of hotels and does not offer that service.

How iQuota helps

iQuota makes independent properties available to AI assistants with direct booking, payment at the property and 0% commission, with the price and terms each property sets. We cannot guarantee that an AI assistant will recommend you.

Want AI to give your real details, with direct booking and no commission? The first 30 hotels join free until 30 June 2027.

See the Founding Hotels programme

Frequently asked questions

Can my hotel appear on Wikivoyage?

Yes, in its destination's "Sleep" section, with objective details and a neutral description. Anything that looks like advertising is removed.

Can I write my hotel's listing myself?

Wikimedia's Terms of Use require you to disclose your relationship if you are paid to edit. The most prudent option is to ask on the article's talk page.

Is there a Wikivoyage in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Greek?

Yes. All four editions appear in Meta-Wiki's table of editions; the Greek one has existed since 2013.

What happens if my listing is deleted?

Do not simply re-add it: raise it on the talk page. According to the Italian policy, repeated violations can lead to the account being blocked.

Does being on Wikivoyage get me into ChatGPT or other AI?

Not confirmed. The Wikimedia Foundation asks AI companies to cite their sources, but we found no data on how Wikivoyage specifically is used.

Sources

More guides for hotels

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