AI in Action: Lessons from the Female Founders in Hospitality Summit
Key insights from hospitality AI experts emphasize solving business problems first, establishing data governance, and creating experimentation time for teams.
AI in Hospitality
This dedicated AI in Hospitality section explores how AI is reshaping the industry, from guest communication and marketing personalisation to revenue management, operations, staffing, cybersecurity, and the evolving role of data and automation across the hotel and travel ecosystem. It brings together practical use cases, expert insights, product and partnership news, leadership viewpoints, and real world lessons from properties and brands of all sizes, helping hospitality professionals separate substance from hype and make informed decisions about where AI delivers value today and what to prepare for next.
2035: When Machines Offer Loving Grace, What Do Humans Offer?
The author explores how AI advancement by 2035 could automate hospitality logistics while making human connection the ultimate luxury amenity.
By Jitendra Jain (JJ), Hotelier, Tech Enthusiast and Founder, hotelemarketer.com
Actabl Launches AI Asset Setup to Eliminate Manual Data Entry for Hotel Maintenance and Capital Planning
The solution uses photo-based input to automatically extract equipment details and serial numbers, reducing manual data entry for engineering teams.
AI is rewiring how people choose hotels
Hotels can now influence AI-powered search results through Model Context Protocol technology, moving beyond basic OTA listings to showcase unique experiences and drive direct bookings.
By Luke Markesky, Chief Customer Officer, Cendyn™
Opally, the Danish AI hotel platform, raises major investment to scale in Europe
The Danish startup grew from 12 to 50+ hotels across five European countries and raised its first angel round with hospitality and tech veterans.
AI Assistants vs. AI Agents:
The article explains how AI agents differ from assistants by working independently to achieve goals, potentially giving smaller hotels competitive advantages over larger brands.
By Ira Vouk, Hospitality Tech and AI Consultant, Hospitality 2.0 Consulting
6 Ways I Actually Use AI Every Week (Including One That Made Me a Better Thinker)
A business professional shares six practical AI applications that enhance rather than replace human thinking, from custom travel planning to coding simple tools without programming knowledge.
By Jitendra Jain (JJ), Hotelier, Tech Enthusiast and Founder, hotelemarketer.com
The AI information gap and the CIO’s mandate for transparency
B2B buyers now prioritize AI transparency and governance over flashy features, requiring CIOs to coordinate company-wide messaging to build customer trust.
From Data to Foresight: How AI Is Rewiring the Way Hotels Collect Guest Intelligence
AI transforms hotel data collection from reactive reporting to predictive intelligence, unifying systems to anticipate guest needs and optimize revenue in real-time.
By Are Morch, Digital Transformation Coach for Hotels, Are Morch, Digital Transformation Coach
Hotels risk losing visibility as search behaviour rapidly evolves with the rise of AI & social search
Study finds 47,300 monthly TikTok searches and 28,100 Perplexity searches for "hotels in London" alongside 74,000 Google searches, prompting new optimization strategies.
Two Industry Leaders, Two Views: Beyond the Hype – Rethinking Agentic AI in Hospitality
The whitepaper examines both potential benefits and structural risks of autonomous AI systems in hotels, emphasizing governance and phased implementation.
How AI is Pushing Past Hotel Guest Personas
AI requires contextual, real-time guest data rather than static personas to deliver effective personalization and capture revenue opportunities.
From browsing to conversation: AI Infrastructure to compete in the new hotel ecosystem
Mirai argues hotels need AI infrastructure designed for conversation in addition to web browsing to compete with OTAs in the new conversational commerce era.
By Pablo Delgado, Managing Partner & CEO America, Mirai
Fliggy goes live with bookings via AI interface
Fliggy's AI bookings surged 800% during Spring Festival, with attraction tickets up 24-fold as consumers shift from AI search to task execution.
Lobby secures USD 2.2M to expand its AI Booking Platform across the travel industry
The startup raised funds from Founderful to expand its AI platform that processes group booking emails in 30 seconds, reducing response times by 75% and boosting conversion rates up to 15%.
Lobby and Founderful
Expert Views (18)
Fergus Boyd, Hospitality Consultant, HFTP
In a word, no. Websites were designed to entice humans to view, discover, consider, buy. They are heavy with images, HTML, JavaScript, etc. to entice us in and encourage us to dwell. APIs were invented for M2M, machine to machine, transactions.
Juanjo Rodriguez, Founder, The Hotels Network
Agents will be everywhere, but behind the scenes. Booking agents are a short-term solution; using AI to simulate human behavior is like asking for a faster horse. Agents that behave as people, visiting websites and simulating human behavior (clicking on links, filling forms) are an incredible technological feat, but are a poor solution to most real-word problems: - Agents are very slow, because they have to replicate user paths built for humans- They fail often, because every website they visit is differentThe future will be MCP- and API-based, with agents interacting with those MCP/API.
Ian Millar, Senior Lecturer Hospitality Technology, EHL
Crystal ball time. 5 to 10 years i think we will quite similar to where we are today. the slow pace of change will not change and traditional tech stacks will still be around. lack of motivation to change, contracts and low investment will hinder the change.
Why AI Success in Hotels Now Depends on Measurable Results, Not Momentum
The article argues hotels must shift from AI experimentation to measurable operational improvements, focusing on defined performance targets and consistent system adoption.
By Steven Moore, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Actabl
Putting the AI into the FIFA World Cup
Analysis explores how AI could help coordinate the complex multi-stakeholder ecosystem around World Cup 2026 amid geopolitical tensions, rising costs, and operational fragmentation.
By Terence Ronson, Founder & Managing Director, Pertlink Limited
The AI search shift is here, and the window to act is now
Lighthouse launches Connect AI app in ChatGPT's marketplace, giving hotels direct booking presence in AI conversations that bypass OTAs.
How agentic AI will self-assemble the enterprise stack
The article explores how AI agents will enable continuous, self-optimizing enterprise systems, shifting CIO focus from technology implementation to governance and cultural readiness.