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How AI-powered guest technology is driving the next era of personalization in hotels

Alongside the correct digital touchpoints, we’ve seen AI dining recommendations boost revenue on in-room dining by over 650% in a six month period in properties we have worked with. ... As a core part of the hotel experience, chat drives meaningful engagement: some hotels have exchanged over 8,400 messages in six months, with AI helping maintain a negative tone in fewer than 3% of interactions

How to use AI to make more from late hotel check-outs

Only once this was all in place did the team turn to the AI itself. The result? "We can instantly respond to that message – most times – better than a human would able be able to." ... And it's a useful reminder for anyone in hospitality experimenting with AI tools right now: don't give in to the temptation to just rewrite the one bad output.

Google Is Now Selling Placement Inside the AI Answer, the DMA Already Let Hotels Undercut OTAs and Most Don't Know It, Hilton Tops Brand Value at $19.2B

Google is selling placement inside AI answers, and the first hotel partner is a major chain brought in by invitation. ... For three weeks, the brief has covered AI as a visibility problem: most hotels don't appear in AI recommendations, citation share is concentrating, and AI rankings are unstable.

Google's now selling placement inside the AI answer — starting with IHG, by invitation only

It opened as a partner program, and IHG walked in first. AI Max reached travel months ago ; the answer-slot is the new ground, and it's being handed out by invitation. ... And the shape can still change: AI Max itself started in beta and now runs for more than half a million advertisers, so the invitation-only lane could widen to self-serve later.

Booking Holdings' 'connected trip' vision never materialized, and AI is the latest threat

Seven years in, the “connected trip” has outlasted even generative artificial intelligence (AI) as a quarterly earnings buzzword. ... The industry's most popular travel combo, flight + hotel, which was pioneered by Expedia back in internet prehistory in 2001, remains in Booking.com a basic Lastminute.com white label that lives outside

The Invisible Operating System

Walk into a great hotel and you’ll notice remarkably little. The check-in is effortless. The room is exactly what you expected. The payment is seamless. The directions were accurate. ... AI isn’t creating these problems. It’s revealing them. Organizations with strong operating systems will benefit enormously because AI has reliable information from which to reason.

The law that just fined Google has been running on Booking.com since December 2024

Brussels fined Google €890 million on Thursday, €460 million of it for putting its own Shopping, Flights and Hotels above rival services in search. ... In November, Julie Farago, its vice president for travel and local search, described booking flights and hotels inside AI Mode itself, with Booking.com , Expedia, Marriott, IHG, Choice Hotels and Wyndham

Your Hotel's Website Is No Longer Where the Decision Gets Made

— https://rategain.com/blog/google-marketing-live-2026-ai-shopping-hotels/ “Google Agentic Hotel Booking Arrives: AI-Powered Reservations in 2026,” Nomad Lawyer — https://www.nomadlawyer.org/google-agentic-hotel-booking-may ... , Offers & Reviews,” BookedUpMedia — https://bookedupmedia.com/hotel-schema-markup “Hotel AI Visibility for Boutique Hotels,” RevPARGenius — https://revpargenius.com/insights/hotel-ai-visibility-boutique-hotels

I photographed the future standing behind the past

A few weeks ago I wrote about four teams in one hotel who were each completely right and still lost money, because no one turned their four right answers into a single decision. ... It would hold the entire hotel in mind at once, connect two facts nobody put in the same room, and act while the night can still be saved, long before it would ever surface in a quarterly review.

Leadership Under Pressure: How The David Kempinski Tel Aviv Turned Crisis Into an Operating Philosophy

People First in a Period of Crisis Since October 7, 2023, luxury hotels in Israel have had to navigate an operating environment unlike almost anywhere else in the world. ... AI and technology are incredibly valuable in helping us gather insights, recognise patterns and better understand guest preferences.

EU Fined Google €460M for Burying Hotel Search Rivals and Hotels Weren't One of Them, Accor Sells Essendi Stake for €975M, Kempinski Tel Aviv Turned Crisis Into Operating Philosophy

The EU Fined Google for Burying Its Rivals in Hotel Search. ... Cayuga Hospitality Consultants finds travelers now discover hotels via TikTok, Instagram, and AI tools before ever reaching a hotel website, requiring marketing investment in platform presence rather than

The Hotel Guest Journey No Longer Starts with Google

“What’s a good hotel in Boston for a business trip near the Financial District?” ... Hotels that consistently publish helpful content , maintain up-to-date websites, earn positive guest reviews, and keep their business listings current are in a stronger position to appear in AI-generated

Google, Take the Wheel (And the Budget): Navigating Ads’ Hands-Off Future for Hotels

Let’s discuss the reality of these “hands-off” AI Max ads, specifically for individually branded hotels like an AC Hotel somewhere in Minneapolis, or one of Hilton Garden Inn Hotels in Dallas. ... Let’s Dive In AI Mode: When using AI Mode and asking “what’s the best hotel in Dallas?” the first mentioned hotel is from Forbes Travel Guide’s website.

Increase Hotel Revenue, without the Operational Stress

On top of this, hotels typically see an 18 to 30% reduction in net income once commissions, overrides and participation in programmes such as Booking's Genius are factored in. ... Stay in Control When Plans Change Hospitality is an industry where circumstances can change overnight. The hotels that respond fastest are often the ones that recover quickest.

Who Controls the Controls?

It is worth being precise about what it should mean in a hotel context: not a person who reviews an AI-generated upsell email before it goes out, but a governance layer that constrains what the system ... The properties that will look foolish in twelve months are not the ones that moved slowly on AI.