The hospitality industry is no stranger to the art of making guests feel special. From the warm welcomes at hotel check-ins to the tailored experiences at exotic resorts, creating memorable moments is at the heart of this industry.
Today, making special memories is becoming even more personalized and efficient. Hotels anticipate your preferences before you check in. Restaurants predict your favorite dishes. Smart technology enhances every aspect of your travel experience.
Data and AI are transforming hospitality in ways we could only dream of a few years ago — and they’re only continuing to push the envelope on unforgettable experiences.
Customer preferences in the hospitality industry have evolved significantly over the past few years. Modern travelers demand personalized, seamless experiences that cater to their specific needs and desires.
This major consumer shift is driven by several factors, including the proliferation of digital technologies, increased accessibility to information, and a growing expectation for instant gratification. To stay competitive, hospitality businesses must adapt quickly to these changing preferences.
That means paying close attention to:
One way to visualize what data and AI can enable around customer experience is to compare it to high rollers visiting a casino.
All casino staff know high rollers by name, know their preferences by heart, and roll out the red carpet when they visit. With humans, that type of treatment can’t scale beyond a small portion of their guests — just the high rollers. But if you couple data and AI with digital platforms, you can expand your reach dramatically, providing the same star treatment and tailored services to every individual.
Harry O’Halloran, VP at Launch Consulting Group, explains, “With the right Customer 360 strategy in place tied to AI and digital platforms, hospitality brands can provide tailored, personalized experiences that treat everyone like a ‘high roller’ — even if they’re an infrequent guest that has nowhere near the same level of spend.”
That level of customer experience drives loyalty and increases customer retention, stickiness, and lifetime value. Fast-movers in the hospitality industry have already hopped on this train, leveraging data and AI to get and stay ahead of the competition. Here’s how they’re doing it.
Making Expert Recommendations
Data and AI play a crucial role in personalizing the guest experience by analyzing vast amounts of customer data to offer tailored recommendations for hotels, restaurants, and activities. These systems consider past behaviors, preferences, and even real-time context to provide highly relevant suggestions. A personalized approach increases guest satisfaction by making their stay more enjoyable and convenient, leading to increased loyalty and repeat bookings.
For instance, Marriott’s Renaissance Hotels have introduced AI-powered ‘virtual concierge’ services, which provide personalized recommendations and assistance to guests. Similarly, IHG Hotels & Resorts have revolutionized their booking experience through next-gen cloud solutions, making it easier for guests to find options that suit their preferences and needs.
Leveraging Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
The introduction of chatbots and virtual assistants in the hospitality industry has transformed customer service. These AI-driven tools offer round-the-clock assistance, ensuring that guests receive immediate responses to their inquiries, regardless of the time. This improves service efficiency and reduces the workload on human staff so they can focus on more complex guest needs. Virtual assistants, such as Alexa for Hospitality, enable guests to control room features, request services, and access information using simple voice commands, creating a seamless and interactive experience.
Using Predictive Analytics for Guest Preferences
By analyzing historical data and patterns, companies can predict preferences for room types, amenities, and even dining choices and prepare personalized itineraries with menus tailored to guest tastes, bespoke excursions, and customized in-room experiences. Anticipating guests’ needs not only boosts customer satisfaction but also increases operational efficiency, reducing last-minute requests and adjustments.
Automating Routine Tasks
AI-driven automation streamlines routine tasks, decreasing wait times and offering a smooth, hassle-free start and end to a guest’s stay. AI systems can even manage room service requests and housekeeping schedules, ensuring timely and efficient service delivery. Starwood Hotels, for instance, introduced robotic butlers at their Aloft Hotel in Cupertino. These butlers handle various guest services efficiently, giving human staff more time to focus on more complex tasks.
Optimizing Inventory Management
AI helps optimize inventory management by predicting demand and ensuring that stock levels are maintained at optimal levels. This reduces the risk of overstocking or stockouts, both of which can negatively impact guest satisfaction.
AI systems can also encourage sustainability, quickly and intelligently reviewing booking patterns, seasonal trends, and historical data to forecast the necessary inventory for food, beverages, and other consumables, leading to more efficient operations and reduced waste. Royal Caribbean Cruises uses AI to minimize waste and ensure optimal inventory levels, improving operational efficiency and decreasing environmental impact.
Putting Maintenance on Autopilot
Predictive maintenance utilizes AI to monitor the condition of hotel equipment and infrastructure, predicting potential failures before they occur, lowering downtime and repair costs while ensuring that guest services remain uninterrupted. By predicting when appliances and systems are likely to fail, hotels can schedule maintenance during off-peak times, reducing the impact on guests and enhancing their overall experience.
Prioritizing Labor Efficiency
Leading casino and gaming companies are using AI and ML models to better predict and create schedules for their employees. Built right, these models can be used across all the casino properties they own, including any associated hotels, restaurants, and shops. Doing so drivings down labor costs and ensures service members are always available to deliver a world-class experience for their customers.
Deploying Dynamic Pricing Models
Dynamic pricing models powered by AI enable hotels to adjust prices in real time based on demand, supply, and market trends. Taking advantage of these models keeps room rates competitive yet profitable and lets hotels capitalize on high-demand periods.
Revinate, a guest data platform, uses AI to help hotels implement dynamic pricing strategies that adjust room rates based on demand, booking patterns, and market trends. And it works quite well. With Revinate, the InterContinental Hua Hin Resort targeted guests who lived near their property and promoted a 96-hour room offer to drive last-minute business, resulting in over 230 bookings.
Maximizing Revenue Through Accurate Yield Management
AI-powered yield management helps companies maximize revenue from available inventory by adjusting prices and availability based on demand forecasts. AI's ability to analyze large datasets ensures that pricing strategies are always aligned with current market conditions, helping hotels strategically manage room availability and pricing.
Airlines benefit from AI-driven yield management, too. Virgin Atlantic, Royal Air Maroc, and Azul Brazilian Airlines are using a large market model and pricing system called Fetcherr to predict customer behavior and optimize flight patterns.
Intelligently Segmenting Customers for Targeted Marketing
AI helps break down customer data into detailed segments, allowing hotels to craft highly personalized offers and promotions based on guest preferences, behaviors, and booking patterns. With this information at their fingertips, hotels can target these segments with tailored marketing campaigns, boosting engagement and increasing bookings.
Collecting More Useful Data
Using AI to collect and analyze customer data gives you a deeper understanding of what your guests want. Take the Dorchester Collection, for example. They use Metis, an AI platform, to dig into guest feedback and social media. Metis gives them a better understanding of what customers like and don't like, allowing them to fine-tune their marketing strategies and brainstorm new ways to enhance the guest experience.
Incorporating Predictive Marketing
AI in predictive marketing helps hotels stay ahead by forecasting trends and customer behavior. By looking at past data and current market trends, hotels can launch marketing campaigns that hit the mark and are perfectly timed seasonally. It's a proactive way to ensure your promotions match what guests are looking for.
Creating and Sharing Engaging Content
AI also helps you create content that speaks directly to different customer segments, crafting personalized emails, targeted ads, and even immersive VR experiences.
Recently, Marriott Hotels introduced personalized VR experiences that allow potential guests to take virtual tours of their hotel rooms and facilities, providing an engaging way to capture the interest of potential guests and convert them into bookings.
AI-powered fraud detection systems keep an eye on transactions in real time, spotting suspicious activity that might suggest cheating and stopping fraud before it happens. Being proactive allows hotels to protect their finances and maintain guest trust.
The hospitality sector stands on the brink of a technological transformation that promises to redefine how we travel, dine, and relax. AI technologies are not just enhancing guest experiences but also optimizing operations and boosting revenue.
But staying competitive in this evolving landscape means organizations must embrace these innovations and continuously adapt to changing customer preferences — fast. That's the AI imperative.
The hospitality industry is no stranger to the art of making guests feel special. From the warm welcomes at hotel check-ins to the tailored experiences at exotic resorts, creating memorable moments is at the heart of this industry.
Today, making special memories is becoming even more personalized and efficient. Hotels anticipate your preferences before you check in. Restaurants predict your favorite dishes. Smart technology enhances every aspect of your travel experience.
Data and AI are transforming hospitality in ways we could only dream of a few years ago — and they’re only continuing to push the envelope on unforgettable experiences.
Customer preferences in the hospitality industry have evolved significantly over the past few years. Modern travelers demand personalized, seamless experiences that cater to their specific needs and desires.
This major consumer shift is driven by several factors, including the proliferation of digital technologies, increased accessibility to information, and a growing expectation for instant gratification. To stay competitive, hospitality businesses must adapt quickly to these changing preferences.
That means paying close attention to:
One way to visualize what data and AI can enable around customer experience is to compare it to high rollers visiting a casino.
All casino staff know high rollers by name, know their preferences by heart, and roll out the red carpet when they visit. With humans, that type of treatment can’t scale beyond a small portion of their guests — just the high rollers. But if you couple data and AI with digital platforms, you can expand your reach dramatically, providing the same star treatment and tailored services to every individual.
Harry O’Halloran, VP at Launch Consulting Group, explains, “With the right Customer 360 strategy in place tied to AI and digital platforms, hospitality brands can provide tailored, personalized experiences that treat everyone like a ‘high roller’ — even if they’re an infrequent guest that has nowhere near the same level of spend.”
That level of customer experience drives loyalty and increases customer retention, stickiness, and lifetime value. Fast-movers in the hospitality industry have already hopped on this train, leveraging data and AI to get and stay ahead of the competition. Here’s how they’re doing it.
Making Expert Recommendations
Data and AI play a crucial role in personalizing the guest experience by analyzing vast amounts of customer data to offer tailored recommendations for hotels, restaurants, and activities. These systems consider past behaviors, preferences, and even real-time context to provide highly relevant suggestions. A personalized approach increases guest satisfaction by making their stay more enjoyable and convenient, leading to increased loyalty and repeat bookings.
For instance, Marriott’s Renaissance Hotels have introduced AI-powered ‘virtual concierge’ services, which provide personalized recommendations and assistance to guests. Similarly, IHG Hotels & Resorts have revolutionized their booking experience through next-gen cloud solutions, making it easier for guests to find options that suit their preferences and needs.
Leveraging Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
The introduction of chatbots and virtual assistants in the hospitality industry has transformed customer service. These AI-driven tools offer round-the-clock assistance, ensuring that guests receive immediate responses to their inquiries, regardless of the time. This improves service efficiency and reduces the workload on human staff so they can focus on more complex guest needs. Virtual assistants, such as Alexa for Hospitality, enable guests to control room features, request services, and access information using simple voice commands, creating a seamless and interactive experience.
Using Predictive Analytics for Guest Preferences
By analyzing historical data and patterns, companies can predict preferences for room types, amenities, and even dining choices and prepare personalized itineraries with menus tailored to guest tastes, bespoke excursions, and customized in-room experiences. Anticipating guests’ needs not only boosts customer satisfaction but also increases operational efficiency, reducing last-minute requests and adjustments.
Automating Routine Tasks
AI-driven automation streamlines routine tasks, decreasing wait times and offering a smooth, hassle-free start and end to a guest’s stay. AI systems can even manage room service requests and housekeeping schedules, ensuring timely and efficient service delivery. Starwood Hotels, for instance, introduced robotic butlers at their Aloft Hotel in Cupertino. These butlers handle various guest services efficiently, giving human staff more time to focus on more complex tasks.
Optimizing Inventory Management
AI helps optimize inventory management by predicting demand and ensuring that stock levels are maintained at optimal levels. This reduces the risk of overstocking or stockouts, both of which can negatively impact guest satisfaction.
AI systems can also encourage sustainability, quickly and intelligently reviewing booking patterns, seasonal trends, and historical data to forecast the necessary inventory for food, beverages, and other consumables, leading to more efficient operations and reduced waste. Royal Caribbean Cruises uses AI to minimize waste and ensure optimal inventory levels, improving operational efficiency and decreasing environmental impact.
Putting Maintenance on Autopilot
Predictive maintenance utilizes AI to monitor the condition of hotel equipment and infrastructure, predicting potential failures before they occur, lowering downtime and repair costs while ensuring that guest services remain uninterrupted. By predicting when appliances and systems are likely to fail, hotels can schedule maintenance during off-peak times, reducing the impact on guests and enhancing their overall experience.
Prioritizing Labor Efficiency
Leading casino and gaming companies are using AI and ML models to better predict and create schedules for their employees. Built right, these models can be used across all the casino properties they own, including any associated hotels, restaurants, and shops. Doing so drivings down labor costs and ensures service members are always available to deliver a world-class experience for their customers.
Deploying Dynamic Pricing Models
Dynamic pricing models powered by AI enable hotels to adjust prices in real time based on demand, supply, and market trends. Taking advantage of these models keeps room rates competitive yet profitable and lets hotels capitalize on high-demand periods.
Revinate, a guest data platform, uses AI to help hotels implement dynamic pricing strategies that adjust room rates based on demand, booking patterns, and market trends. And it works quite well. With Revinate, the InterContinental Hua Hin Resort targeted guests who lived near their property and promoted a 96-hour room offer to drive last-minute business, resulting in over 230 bookings.
Maximizing Revenue Through Accurate Yield Management
AI-powered yield management helps companies maximize revenue from available inventory by adjusting prices and availability based on demand forecasts. AI's ability to analyze large datasets ensures that pricing strategies are always aligned with current market conditions, helping hotels strategically manage room availability and pricing.
Airlines benefit from AI-driven yield management, too. Virgin Atlantic, Royal Air Maroc, and Azul Brazilian Airlines are using a large market model and pricing system called Fetcherr to predict customer behavior and optimize flight patterns.
Intelligently Segmenting Customers for Targeted Marketing
AI helps break down customer data into detailed segments, allowing hotels to craft highly personalized offers and promotions based on guest preferences, behaviors, and booking patterns. With this information at their fingertips, hotels can target these segments with tailored marketing campaigns, boosting engagement and increasing bookings.
Collecting More Useful Data
Using AI to collect and analyze customer data gives you a deeper understanding of what your guests want. Take the Dorchester Collection, for example. They use Metis, an AI platform, to dig into guest feedback and social media. Metis gives them a better understanding of what customers like and don't like, allowing them to fine-tune their marketing strategies and brainstorm new ways to enhance the guest experience.
Incorporating Predictive Marketing
AI in predictive marketing helps hotels stay ahead by forecasting trends and customer behavior. By looking at past data and current market trends, hotels can launch marketing campaigns that hit the mark and are perfectly timed seasonally. It's a proactive way to ensure your promotions match what guests are looking for.
Creating and Sharing Engaging Content
AI also helps you create content that speaks directly to different customer segments, crafting personalized emails, targeted ads, and even immersive VR experiences.
Recently, Marriott Hotels introduced personalized VR experiences that allow potential guests to take virtual tours of their hotel rooms and facilities, providing an engaging way to capture the interest of potential guests and convert them into bookings.
AI-powered fraud detection systems keep an eye on transactions in real time, spotting suspicious activity that might suggest cheating and stopping fraud before it happens. Being proactive allows hotels to protect their finances and maintain guest trust.
The hospitality sector stands on the brink of a technological transformation that promises to redefine how we travel, dine, and relax. AI technologies are not just enhancing guest experiences but also optimizing operations and boosting revenue.
But staying competitive in this evolving landscape means organizations must embrace these innovations and continuously adapt to changing customer preferences — fast. That's the AI imperative.