Hotels are usually the finish line for most busy, often stressful travel days, so they owe their guests something easy and uncomplicated.
The right technology tools can enable on-property staff to do just that, said Andrew Pirret, senior vice president of customer experience at Alliants, a customer service software tool that works with hotel brands to enhance guest communications.
"If we think about hotels, you're kind of at the very end of the sort of travel journey. You've been through the flight. You've done the check-in on the plane. You get to the destination. I don't want to be doing a load of admin here," he said on the latest episode of "Next Gen in Lodging" with host Davonne Reaves. "We remove that friction from the journey to make it better for both staff and guests."
It's up to to hotels and their technology providers to find the right tools that not only enable more efficient operations but do so in a way that frees up the team members to provide better face-to-face interactions, which is the secret sauce for each hotel or hotel brand.
"For us, we really want hospitality to be human," he said. "We think the future is people who can deliver on the intangible thing that's really hard to replicate — the something that your competitor isn't going to be able to reproduce."
Hotel employees should have the time and expertise to provide guests with what they are good at, which is to really connect on a human level.
All hotel brands — despite their size or chain scale — have the opportunity to integrate AI in this way, Pirret said.
"I think there's a really interesting flywheel effect," he said. "You've got the luxury customers really trying to look at how do they deliver in a digital world the experience that they give as a human. On the other end of the flywheel, you've got the select-service brands that are wanting to automate that piece, but they also want to enhance the guest experience."