Building a Hotel Booking Service with ChatGPT in Google Sheets

TL;DR

How ChatGPT plugins can supercharge your workflow

Hey there — Edward, Product Owner at ONDA.

Chasing goals. Checking metrics. Crunching numbers. That's not just my job as a PO — it's everyone's job. Sales, marketing, biz dev, CS… we all live in spreadsheets. Usually Excel or Google Sheets.

The sheer volume of Excel books aimed at new hires tells you everything: it's one of the most-used tools in any office.

Half this "how to be a pro" book is Excel tutorials

I think Microsoft Excel is one of the 21st century's greatest productivity breakthroughs. But I'm a Google Sheets guy. Sure, it's less feature-rich — but you can access it anywhere, and with plugins and scripts, you can do more with it.

Especially now. ChatGPT hit the scene, and Google Sheets got ChatGPT plugins (extensions). The greatest productivity software just got turbocharged by AI.

Plenty of ChatGPT-like AI plugins available for Google Sheets

Google Workspace already uses AI in various ways: email automation, smart formula suggestions, auto-fill. But plugging generative AI directly into your workflow — that's next-level.

Using ChatGPT Plugins

YouTube tutorials and online courses already cover how to install and use ChatGPT plugins in Sheets. If you know Excel formulas, you'll get it fast. So I won't bore you with setup details. Instead, I'll show you two real-world use cases that eliminate tedious manual work.

Tip: You'll need an OpenAI API key. Just add a payment method — it's quick.

1) Pattern Recognition: Auto-format messy data

Anyone who's run surveys knows: people don't follow instructions. I've collected tons of user interview data, and even "structured" fields like phone numbers and addresses come back in all formats.

You ask for '010-1234-1234'. They give you '01012341234'. Then you spend hours reformatting by hand.

Not anymore. One plugin solves this. The 'GPT_FILL' function takes a few examples + your messy data, detects the pattern, and fixes everything.

If you have an exact format in mind, use 'GPT_FORMAT' — specify the pattern you want, and it reformats the data accordingly.

Congrats. Your exhaustion wasn't from overwork after all.

2) Sentiment Analysis: Classify text reviews at scale

AI excels at recognizing unstructured patterns. That's huge if you've ever waded through hundreds of hotel reviews or customer feedback. Reading each one takes forever. Categorizing them manually? Soul-crushing.

With a ChatGPT plugin, you can analyze hundreds of reviews with one prompt. Just write a formula like you would for any function — feed it your data and a prompt, and ChatGPT does the rest.

Congrats again. You just saved hours.

Building a Hotel Recommendation + Booking Service with Sheets + ChatGPT

"What if we used ChatGPT plugins to build something more interesting than auto-formatting?"

That thought led me to create a micro-service that recommends hotels and generates booking links. You enter a destination, and ChatGPT suggests hotels and attractions — all inside a Google Sheet.

Hotel recommendation + booking service built in Google Sheets

No coding. No separate app. Just user input → 1) recommended hotels, 2) hotel descriptions, 3) nearby attractions, and 4) booking links. How'd I build this with just Sheets + ChatGPT plugins?

1) Recommended Hotels

Use the 'GPT_LIST' function. Reference the city cell (C3), add a simple prompt, and it returns 10 hotel suggestions across 10 cells.

=GPT_LIST(C3&"recommend 10 hotels or resorts in this city")

2) Hotel Descriptions

Use the basic 'GPT' function. Pass the hotel name (D6) + a prompt, and it returns a one-line description and rating.

=GPT(D6&"give me a one-line intro and rating for this hotel")

3) Nearby Attractions

Use 'GPT_TABLE' to generate a two-column table: attraction names + descriptions.

=GPT_TABLE(C3&"list famous attractions in this city with brief descriptions")

4) Booking Links

Finally, I link ChatGPT's recommendations to ONDA's booking platform 'ONDA Select'.

First, match ChatGPT's hotel names to ONDA's hotel database. The names won't always be identical, so we need fuzzy matching.

Use 'GPT_MAP' to compare the recommended list (D6:D15) with ONDA's hotel inventory. Set a confidence threshold — I used 0.95 (max is 1) to avoid bad matches.

=GPT_MAP(D6:D15,'ONDA_HOTEL'!A:A,0.95)

Then find the matched hotel's ID and generate an ONDA Select booking URL.

Apply this to a "Book Now" cell, and it becomes a live link to ONDA Select (ONDA's B2C booking service). Like this.

Let AI Handle the Busywork. You Focus on Customers.

Hotel recommendation + booking service powered by Google Sheets + ChatGPT plugins

I've shown you how ChatGPT plugins work in real workflows, plus how ONDA built an actual hotel recommendation + booking service with them.

Accuracy isn't 100% yet — but for repetitive, pattern-based tasks, it's a game-changer. And if you have proprietary data (like ONDA's hotel inventory), you can layer on value-add services quickly.

AI is evolving fast. More tasks will become automatable. Let AI handle the tedious stuff. You focus on customers, business strategy, and product. Imagine analyzing customer support logs or hotel reviews in seconds — then acting on insights immediately.

Why not hire an AI assistant today? It's just a plugin install away.