Hoteliers increasingly have artificial intelligence on the mind — from how to incorporate the technology into operations today as well as how to prepare for the growing use by guests researching and booking their trips using AI.
Here's a look at the trending topics for AI in hospitality.
Hospitality's big shift
One thing hospitality tech experts seem to agree on is the shift toward an AI-powered hospitality industry is going to be a huge transition.
"I don't think anybody knows what's going to hit them," Kurien Jacob, partner at Highgate Technology Ventures, said in a video interview at the Hotel Data Conference. "The pace at which AI is evolving is like a supercharged space. The fundamental difference is it's not about just optimization or automation using AI, it's going to be a transformational shift in the way decision-making is done."
The shift is already ongoing, but the technology's entire impact remains to be seen. The hospitality industry needs to prepare itself.
"Ready or not, it's here. People on your staff are using it, even if you think they aren't," Lisa Targonski, director of commercial services of Elder Research, said at HDC's "Plug Into AI" panel. "I think the gaps are really about making sure we're asking the right questions, making sure that the data we're using to inform some of these decisions is solid, trusted data, and making sure that that data is interpreted in the right way."
Mercedes Blanco, vice president of enterprise growth at Lighthouse, added that the AI revolution should feel familiar to the rise of internet searching, and it's just going to take time for everyone to get acquainted with how the technology of large language models works.
"Where we are today [with AI is] where we were at Google 20 years ago. Now it's very obvious how Google works, but it is not very obvious how AI works," Blanco said. "What we should be doing is to work and prepare our content to be AI-ready, because we need to win this game before somebody else [does]."
Preparing for prompts and GEO
Much like how web developers strategize search engine optimization to get their websites higher on Google's results page, AI experts have the opportunity to lead the way for generative engine optimization, or GEO.
John Jimenez, vice president of ecommerce and revenue at Noble Investment Group, said on the panel that not only are the platforms different, but the user's intent is different.
"The SEO customer that comes to your website is exploratory in nature. They want to learn about your hotel, learn about your amenities," Jimenez said. "The GEO customer, the generative optimization customer — they've already done the research in that LLM, [so] they're further along in that decision-making process. And treating them differently has to be something that we have to think about, because they're going to be a growing segment."
Creating a GEO strategy starts with your company's website — making it easily digestible by an AI-powered bot.
Hoteliers "can't just go and put a nice, beautiful brochure on a website," Jacob said in his video, adding that tapping AI experts as vendors can help expedite the process of getting hotel website content ready for AI.
In a recent CoStar News Hotels podcast, Olaf Belgraver, head of chains at Booking.com, said 89% of consumers want to use AI in travel planning. Per Booking.com data, 24% consider AI assistants as trustworthy sources, which already outpaces travel bloggers (19%) and social media influencers (14%).
AI agents "could be rebooking flights if there's disruptions, or adjusting our itineraries, and taking all the end-to-end steps without us necessarily having to intervene, and that's something that we really need to somehow prepare for," he said.
Internal AI possibilities
How hotel companies can use AI is the other half of the equation, and there's potential for the technology across the board from providing personalization to guests, improving forecasting and price modeling and more.
Charles Oswald, CEO of Aperture Hotels, said an LLM could be able to pull in data on a major demand event, recognize a rise in office vacancies, weather disruption and travel reports from airlines.
"I think a key part of what we're missing — in our workflow — is for it to tap into real data in our organization and what we know, ... and tie that into what you see in the marketplace, and then help us produce proper local projections," Oswald said.
Blanco said another business opportunity is to use AI to use personalization for pricing models.
"We tend to focus too much on selling beds or selling rooms, and we haven't focused enough of who are we selling to," she said, adding that AI can help identify guests who might be likely to upgrade their stays based on some key characteristics.
Read more from the experts
- Brandon Stoller, principal at Current Lodging Advisors, LLC, shared on how guest-facing artificial intelligence can add authentic storytelling and personalization to help charm guests.
- CoStar News Hotels' Bryan Wroten explained why hoteliers need to proceed with caution when it comes to implementing new AI tools.
- Mercedes Blanco, vice president of enterprise growth at Lighthouse, weighed in on how AI has quickly become the new “top of the funnel” for travel discovery.
- CoStar News Hotels' Stephanie Ricca recommended avoiding AI use for things that really matter.
- Robert Rauch, owner of R. A. Rauch & Associates, Inc., outlined 10 AI-powered tech trends in the hotel industry.