AI is a double-edged sword for hotels: Done well, it can remove friction and make things more personal. Done poorly, it can strip away the unique experiences that make hotels memorable. Here we dive into the different areas where AI will have an impact and share what hotels can do.
Travel Booking
AI-powered personal assistants are increasingly able to search, compare, and even complete hotel reservations. For purely transactional stays like business trips, airport hotels, or short urban breaks, this automation can be a blessing, saving travellers time and removing friction and effort from routine research and decisions.
But not all travel is transactional. For many guests, booking a trip is about dreaming, imagining, and discovering. The emotional build-up before a holiday or special occasion is part of the experience. In fact, research shows that some people enjoy planning a holiday more than the holiday itself. So while AI can reduce research time, it can’t replace the inspirational and visual journey that drives many bookings (not just yet, anyway).
What hotels can do:
Continue to focus on rich visuals and storytelling to support the dreaming phase of travel.
Guest Communication
Modern travellers expect answers in minutes, not hours. Hotels often get asked the same questions daily - from “what time is breakfast?” to “can I extend my checkout?”, so it makes sense that using AI-driven chat systems is quickly becoming the norm, helping hotels provide round-the-clock service.
These chat systems will further evolve into digital concierges: bots packed with property info, local tips, and synced up to your systems like PMS, CRM, and even third-party services. Acting as digital concierges, they can handle routine requests and suggest tailored offers. They can be used both pre-arrival for potential bookers and in-stay for guests.
Looking further ahead, hotel-based AI agents may even interact directly with travelers’ personal AI planners, shaping the booking and pre-arrival journey without human mediation.
What hotels can do:
Launch and train AI guest communication tools with property-specific content and system integrations.
Use guest queries as feedback loops, revealing unclear information, service gaps, or recurring requests.
Automate routine flows while keeping staff focused on meaningful, high-touch interactions.
Operations
Rising labour costs and ongoing staff shortages put pressure on hotels. AI offers relief by automating repetitive tasks, routine services, and reporting, freeing teams to focus on the moments that actually matter to guests.
Guests themselves are increasingly comfortable with DIY solutions, from mobile check-in to AI-enabled voice assistants. The challenge is to balance automation with moments that require personal attention.
What hotels can do:
Audit processes to decide which tasks should be automated for efficiency, and which should be preserved for human care.
Use AI for scheduling, reporting, and FAQ-level service tasks, reducing staff workload.
Reinvest saved time into staff training and improving on-site guest experience.
Pricing & Personalisation
Revenue management is perhaps the most obvious area where AI is already outperforming humans. Machine learning systems can analyse demand, competitor rates, booking pace, and guest data in real time, adjusting prices with a speed and accuracy no revenue manager could match manually. The next step is personalised pricing and tailored offers - where AI can deliver the right price, upsell, or package to the right guest at the right time.
What hotels can do:
Update the tech stack: connect PMS, CRS, CRM, marketing, and analytics systems into a central data warehouse.
Adopt AI revenue management systems that optimise pricing decisions in real time.
Use guest data to personalise offers, from upsells and cross-sells to curated packages, aligning demand with offerings.
Marketing
AI makes it easy to produce content at scale, but if every hotel uses the same tools, messages quickly become generic. The same applies to AI-driven campaigns: when all brands are optimised by the same algorithms, ads risk becoming interchangeable. The danger lies in chasing only short-term metrics like clicks or conversions, which can slowly chip away at what makes your brand stand out.
What hotels can do:
Start with strategy: a distinctive brand story and positioning is the foundation for all marketing.
Use AI as support and to scale, but ensure human creativity drives campaigns, storytelling, and emotional resonance.
Balance performance metrics with long-term signals such as branded searches.
Key Takeaway
AI will transform booking, guest service, operations, pricing, and marketing. But hotels that chase efficiency without meaning, blend into sameness. The winners will be those that use AI to remove friction where it doesn’t add value, and double down on human creativity and interaction where it does.
A clear positioning and experiences that deliver on expectations remain the core ingredients of success in hospitality. AI should only make them stronger.
