How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Can Solve Major Deficiencies in Hospitality
15 experts shared their view
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can sift through and dynamically draw insights from mountains of data (operational, performance, guest, pricing, comp set, BI, marketing data, etc.) to allow hoteliers automate or augment operations, processes and decision making via various hospitality tech applications in guest services and operations, revenue management, CRM, guest communications, BI, digital marketing, personalization, inventory distribution, etc.
Obviously, it is up to specialized hotel tech vendors to carry the torch and create various AI-powered applications to solve concrete business needs and help the industry overcome its technology deficiencies. In the same time, hoteliers need to monitor, proactively familiarize themselves with and invest in the AI and other next gen technologies that are quickly making their way into hospitality.
The question is, what are the top five AI-powered applications that are must-have today and can solve the most immediate issues and deficiencies in hospitality?
To answer the question on the top AI-powered applications that are must-have today and can solve the most immediate issues and deficiencies in hospitality, we need to see what the deficiencies in hospitality are. From my perspective, the deficiencies include lack of sufficient hospitality employees (due to low pay, low prestige of hospitality jobs, COVID), hospitality employees'/managers' lack of time to focus on customer service (due to understaffing), and underutilisation of business opportunities (due to the lack of time, data, skills, or technology). Therefore, technologies that allow hospitality companies to compensate for the lack of employees, allow the employees to pay more attention to the guests, and support business decisions are of great importance. I would recommend chatbots, AI-powered revenue management software, Intelligent Document Processing solutions, in-room voice-activated devices, and robots (for cleaning, carrying items, information provision). These technologies would relieve employees from implementing dull and repetitive tasks and will free time for them to focus on customer experience, thus improving their productivity. Additionally, robots will liberate hospitality employees from some dirty tasks, while AI-powered revenue management software would help managers take more justified revenue management decisions.