Five ways to use AI in your hotel’s day-to-day operations
Oh great, another article about AI.
Opinion Articles
The Hotel AI Compass: Sailing from Pain to Power with Blue Ocean Thinking
Running a hotel today can feel like captaining a ship through stormy waters. Guest expectations rise like relentless waves. OTA commissions drag on profits like heavy currents. Staff row tirelessly, yet exhaustion spread across the deck. Some days, survival feels like the only option.
By Are Morch, Digital Transformation Coach for Hotels, Are Morch, AI Champion
Beyond the Front Desk: How Cloud, Mobility, and AI Are Redefining Hospitality
I’ve worked in hotel tech long enough to know that most meaningful changes don’t arrive with a bang. They come in crawling in quietly, before they begin to walk. But they reshape our operations one baby step, one workflow, one guest interaction at a time. But every so often, multiple changes come together in a way that completely redefines the landscape. Right now, we’re seeing exactly that.
By Kevin King, Chief Executive Officer, Shiji
Robots in Hospitality: A Smarter Answer to Labor Shortages and Rising Costs
The hospitality industry has always been about people — welcoming guests, creating memorable stays, and building experiences that keep travelers coming back. But behind the scenes, there’s a growing challenge that nearly every hotel owner, general manager, and operator is facing: labor shortages and rising costs.
By Michael French, Founder and CEO, RoomRunner
How hotels can beat the front desk queue problem
If you’ve ever stood in line at a hotel reception, you know how quickly excitement can turn into frustration. Guests arrive with bags, families and expectations – but a slow-moving queue at check-in is often the first impression they get. For hoteliers, this isn’t just an operational issue. It’s a brand issue. Those first (and last) moments shape guest satisfaction more than almost anything else.
How AI Will Transform Hotel Managers into Strategic Leaders
I’ve spent years watching hotel managers juggle operations like circus performers. Emails at midnight, last-minute cancellations, staff shortages, unexpected group bookings, fluctuating ADRs, you name it. Managers have been trained to react. But leadership isn’t about reacting. It’s about anticipating, steering, and inspiring.
By Are Morch, Digital Transformation Coach for Hotels, Are Morch, AI Champion
The Hidden Cost of Manual Accounting in Hospitality
Manual accounting may seem like a manageable process—especially for small hospitality operations—but the reality is far more costly than it appears on the surface. From labor-intensive data entry to delayed financial insights, manual systems create inefficiencies that ripple across the business. In today’s hospitality landscape, where margins are tight and customer expectations are high, these inefficiencies can undermine growth and profitability.
By Jon Giuliani, Chief Revenue Officer, Ximplifi
What if hospitality saved jobs? Even if only partially!
In a world where artificial intelligence learns faster than we have time to educate it, a major risk looms: that of the mass destruction of tasks performed by humans, and with them, entire professions.
By Vanguélis Panayotis, CEO MKG Consulting & Hospitality ON / MRICS, Hospitality ON
Self-Service: Convenience or Just Passing the Stress?
I just got back from an international trip to drop off my son to boarding school. Self-check-in / self-service is everywhere. Travel, retail, hospitality, the “check yourself in, manage it yourself” model is spreading. On paper, it’s efficient. In practice, it’s… mixed.
By Martin Soler, Partner, Soler & Associates
Building Clean Data Foundations for AI in Hospitality
This article concludes Hospitality Net’s Thematics campaign with Shiji Group on Single Provider for Seamless Data. Throughout the series we have examined how integrated systems can transform hotel operations and the guest journey. For this final edition, the focus turns to one of the most pressing questions facing the industry today: how to build clean, connected datasets that can support useful applications of artificial intelligence.
4 ways AI is making an impact in hospitality right now
Discussion about AI is rife in our industry. Is the technology good enough to implement yet? What’s the risk versus the reward? Does it really make that much of an impact? What jobs is it taking? What about ethics?
By Ryan Haynes, Director/Lead Consultant, Hoteliers' Voice Podcast/ Haynes MarComs Ltd
Turning Lobbies into Revenue with Grab & Go Technology
Hotels are using technology to deliver more personalized experiences at every stage of a guest’s stay, including convenient access to amenities and services on the go. A 2024 study showed that travelers were willing to pay, on average, 5 percent more for heightened convenience during hotel stays and other experiences. These factors include delivery time and service speed, with self-service technology emerging as a happy medium for both hotel operators and guests to meet these expectations.
By Priya Rajamani, VP of Implementation & Support, Stayntouch
How hoteliers can create connections that drive revenue in an AI-driven world
Thanks to GenAI tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini, building a travel itinerary is easier than ever. Rather than spending hours on research, a potential traveler can type in a few prompts, say, planning an Italian vacation focused on the best restaurants in a specific region, and seconds later, receive a complete itinerary. Is it perfect? No, but it provides a unique informed place to start. GenAI certainly saves time, which is why 80% of consumers using airline, hotel, and travel platforms are leveraging AI tools.
By Noreen Henry, Chief Revenue Officer, Sojern, HSMAI Foundation Board Member, Sojern
The “Wow” Factor: How Humanoid AI Agents Are Redefining the Smart Hotel Experience
The global hospitality industry is undergoing significant change. In recent years, humanoid AI agents have evolved from futuristic novelties to key players within the world’s most advanced hotels. In 2025, competition for guest loyalty, operational efficiency, and brand differentiation is fiercer than ever. In this environment, AI‑powered agents offer a way not just to impress guests, but to fundamentally reshape how hotels operate and connect with their visitors.
By Filip Linek, Founder, FLAE Robotics
What if Alvin Toffler Ran a Hotel?
In his groundbreaking book, The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler painted a vivid portrait of a world in metamorphosis—a civilization shedding the rigidity of industrialism to embrace the fluid, fast-paced rhythm of the Information Age. He envisioned a society no longer defined by smokestacks and assembly lines, but by hyper-communication, data streams, decentralized power, and the rise of the prosumer—individuals who both produce and consume.
By Bonnie Knutson, Professor in The School of Hospitality Business in the Broad College of Business, Michigan State
What Visual Matrix is Learning From You – Lessons From the Road
There’s something grounding about walking in a hotel’s back hallways and hearing real stories, in real time, from real hoteliers. Lately, we’ve been doing just that: sitting in lobbies, behind front desk counters, joining team huddles, and absorbing what’s working (and what’s not) from the people who live hospitality every day.
By Lauren Crocket and Patty Jefferson
Reframing Data Security and Sovereignty as a Hotel Team and Guest Benefit
All it takes is one breach. Cybersecurity represents a clear and present threat for every hotel, and the topic deserves every kilobyte of attention that it gets. But this topic, and the related one of ‘Data Sovereignty’ are often framed as defensive, trepidation-filled subject matters where hotels must act now…or else…
AI-Powered Booking and Concierge Systems: A Strategic Lifeline for Independent Hotels
Independent and boutique hotels in the U.S. face unprecedented challenges. Labor shortages continue to strain daily operations, with over 60% of hotels reporting difficulties in filling staff positions. At the same time, reliance on Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) cuts deeply into profitability, with commissions averaging 20–30% of gross bookings. For small operators, these dual pressures create an unsustainable environment.
By Alexia Abreu, Founder of Lumara, Lumara Smart Hospitality
Nine AI-fuelled business models that leaders can’t ignore
AI isn’t just improving corporate productivity and efficiency. It’s poised to reshape how value is defined, delivered and captured with its ability to create content, ideas and logic, and solve problems autonomously. The result: new AI-fuelled business models are challenging long-standing business assumptions and further blurring industry boundaries, contributing to massive new value pools and growth opportunities that will emerge over the next decade and beyond.
By Paul Blase and Matthew Duffey
Model Context Protocol (MCP): The Hidden Risks Hoteliers Must Uncover Before Embracing AI’s Latest Integration Standard
Our industry is entering a phase where AI is no longer just powering chatbots or enabling precise revenue forecasts—it’s beginning to connect directly to core operational systems.
By Alan Young, VP, Strategy | Hospitality, Infor