AI in Hospitality

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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.

Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Technology Edition

Creating Atmosphere: Design, AI, and the Human Experience of Hospitality

James Watson argues that AI's most promising role in hospitality design is not to generate atmospheres autonomously, but to give human designers the precision and responsiveness needed to make spaces that genuinely breathe — adapting in real time to occupancy, mood, and moment. The risk, he warns, is not that AI replaces designers, but that without strong human vision guiding it, it flattens the industry into an algorithmically pleasant, characterless sameness.

James "Eightch" Watson
By James "Eightch" Watson, Designer & Creative Director, FAKE MOON
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Technology Edition

True Recognition at the Front Desk: A More Personal Check-In

Alan Young argues that voice recognition technology at the front desk is not a cost-cutting measure but a means of restoring something the industry has been quietly losing: the agent's attention. By offloading administrative commands to speech, the technology frees staff to do what no system can replicate — make a guest feel genuinely seen upon arrival.

Alan Young
By Alan Young, VP, Strategy | Hospitality, Infor
HN Original
Interview Sales & Marketing

Shiji's Natalie Kimball: hotels can't outspend OTAs on AI, but they can still win on experience

We didn't go to HITEC 2026 for the demos. We went for the conversations. We sat down with exhibitors right there on the show floor. No script, no prepared questions, just one starting point: tell us what you do, in plain language. This is where it went with Natalie Kimball, VP of Strategic Account Management for Horizon Distribution and Iceportal Content at Shiji.

Natalie Kimball in conversation with Hospitality Net
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Technology Edition

The Lobby Boy v2031 or How Hotels Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the HXO

Terence Ronson looks ahead to 2031, when frictionless automation will have made most hotels equally smart, equally efficient, and equally forgettable — and argues that the competitive differentiator will be a new role he calls the Human Experience Orchestrator. Part behavioral psychologist, part operational commander, the HXO is the person who reads the AI's outputs and then decides, with genuine human judgment, what to actually do with them.

Terence Ronson
By Terence Ronson, Founder & Managing Director, Pertlink Limited
HN Original
Interview Technology

Cendyn wants hotels to get ahead of "OTA 2.0"

We didn't go to HITEC 2026 for the demos. We went for the conversations. We sat down with exhibitors right there on the show floor. No script, no prepared questions, just one starting point: tell us what you do, in plain language. This is where it went with Cendyn's CEO Michael Bennett, Chief Marketing Officer Nicki Graham, and EVP of Product Kevin Duncan.

Nicola Graham, Kevin Duncan and Michael Bennett in conversation with Hospitality Net
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Technology Edition

AI Adoption Is Accelerating. Here’s How Hotels Are Keeping Pace

Catherine Donaldson takes a decidedly practical approach, moving past the philosophical debates about AI in hospitality to focus on where it is already delivering measurable results today. From AI voice agents answering calls around the clock to agentic workflows that coordinate operations without manual handoffs, she maps five proven use cases and makes the case that the performance gap between adopters and laggards is already widening.

Catherine Donaldson
By Catherine Donaldson, Director of Marketing, Canary Technologies
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Technology Edition

The Execution Layer Hotels Are Missing, and Why It Matters Before Agents Arrive

George Roukas identifies the layer most hotel AI strategies are skipping entirely: execution. Brands can build sophisticated loyalty programs and accept intent-rich bookings from AI agents, but if the operational infrastructure cannot reliably deliver what was promised — the right room, the right amenities, the right moment — none of it compounds into loyalty. His argument is that an ontology-based digital twin of hotel operations is what closes that gap, and that now is the time to build it.

George Roukas
By George Roukas, President, GAIPAN
Hotel Yearbook Article The Hotel Yearbook 2026 - Technology Edition

The Agentic Hotel: How Open Infrastructure Turns AI Into Operational Performance

Stephan Wiesener argues that the hospitality AI conversation has moved past experimentation into a harder question: what infrastructure actually allows AI agents to take reliable action across real hotel operations? Through concrete case studies from citizenM, THE FLAG Zürich, and Cocoon & Eckelmann Hotels, he makes the case that open, API-first architecture is the unglamorous foundation on which everything else depends.

Stephan Wiesener
By Stephan Wiesener, Founder & CTO, Apaleo GmbH