Marqii Reports Key Actions Driving Restaurant Search Performance

Marqii, the leading hospitality discovery platform, has released its 2026 Industry Report, which explores what truly drives restaurant search performance. The report, built from data across thousands of restaurant locations and a survey of restaurant operators, identifies critical actions that can significantly boost guest engagement and search visibility.

According to Avi Goren, Marqii's Co-Founder and CEO, the findings highlight a gap between what operators prioritize and what actually drives results. "Operators know the list of actions they need to take, but they're often sequencing them incorrectly," Goren explained. "Fixing hours, adding photos, and addressing reviews are essential, but consistency and regular updates are key."

The report ranks the actions with the highest impact on guest actions. Accurate and frequently updated hours are found to be the most effective, with locations updating their Google business hours even once averaging 177 daily search views compared to 42 for those that never do. The effect compounds with frequency, as locations in the top quartile of update activity average nearly 300 daily search views and 23 direction requests, whereas those with no hours activity see only 45 views and three direction requests.

Profile completeness also plays a crucial role. A comprehensive profile can significantly enhance engagement across various actions. Locations with optimized profiles average between four and five times the menu clicks, direction requests, and website clicks of Starter profiles. Photos are particularly critical, as only 39% of menu items across the platform carry them, with 19% of operators describing their Google photos as minimal or unmanaged.

Structure on menus is more important than exhaustiveness. Medium menu completeness outperforms both low and high completeness. Locations with medium menu completeness average 205 daily search views and six menu clicks, compared to 59 views and two clicks for low-completeness locations and 154 views and three clicks for high-completeness ones. The report suggests that the goal should be to structure the essentials well rather than complete everything.

Review response is a scale issue rather than a will issue. While 72% of surveyed operators believe they respond to 90-100% of their reviews, in practice, fewer than 30% of brands respond to at least half. The gap widens as the number of locations increases, pointing to capacity constraints rather than a lack of intent.

Marqii's 2026 Industry Report also notes the increasing influence of AI on restaurant discovery. Eighty-nine percent of surveyed operators are familiar with how AI is influencing restaurant discovery, and 57% describe themselves as very familiar and already thinking about it. However, only 49% have made it part of their current strategy. Thirty percent plan to act but haven't started, and 21% are not acting at all.

The report documents that early movers are already leveraging this data effectively. Seventy-five client accounts are now connected to AI assistants through the Marqii MCP, logging nearly 17,000 assistant calls over three months. Ninety-four percent of these calls were data analysis, indicating a significant unclaimed opportunity and suggesting that the first-mover window is still open.

Goren emphasized that the key to success is not complexity but consistency. "Operators need the fundamentals executed consistently, which is a harder problem than it seems at 50 locations," he stated. "The brands pulling ahead are the ones whose information is accurate, complete, and consistent enough that an assistant can quote it without hesitation."