The AI technology industry, currently valued at $186 billion, is growing rapidly and expected to reach $826 billion by 2030. Considering AI’s capability to automate repetitive tasks that free up valuable human hours, its rise in the hospitality industry is not surprising. In fact, 86% of global hotel chains plan to invest in AI over other hotel innovations.
One forerunner in this wave of AI adoption is Shahar Goldboim. After founding DesignedVR, a vacation rental management service, Shahar recognized the broader potential of AI-driven technology. He developed his own revenue management tool, then expanded his vision by creating Boom, the world’s first true AiPMS, an AI-powered property management system designed to streamline online operations for hospitality companies.
With Hilton’s former President of Global Operations and Development Ian Carter recently joining Boom as Chairperson of the advisory board, the company is well-positioned to meet the rising demand for AI in hospitality. Shahar is currently focused on developing the ultimate AI agent—one capable of responding to guests autonomously while preserving each company’s unique tone and culture.
In this post, Shahar shares his insights on how AI can revolutionize the hotel industry, along with 15 AI use cases that are reshaping the hospitality landscape.
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How can AI benefit hospitality businesses?
According to Shahar, AI will create a win-win-win for guests, hotels, and shareholders or investors alike.
“Since AI can automate a hotel’s day-to-day operations—from predictive revenue management and virtual customer support to streamlined hotel maintenance and marketing—it will create a better guest experience overall. This generates higher guest reviews and better ADR and occupancy rates, which leads to greater profits. All with less effort,” he says.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the travel and hospitality industry by enabling hotels to provide more personalized experiences at every touchpoint, from booking to post-checkout.
For example, AI analyzes past booking data to create tailored offers during the booking process, followed by personalized upsell opportunities before the guest’s arrival. Using AI-powered self-check-in, guests can enter a room where the temperature, lighting, and ambiance are already customized to their preferences. Hotel AI can anticipate the guest’s needs to provide maximum comfort and a unique experience from day one.
What’s more, the growing number of hospitality tech companies is making AI-driven solutions more accessible, allowing properties of all sizes to take advantage of this booming hotel technology trend.
Do hotels risk losing their human touch because of AI?
Shahar understands that hotels may worry about losing their brand identity when integrating AI into customer support and guest communication. However, he says that “over time, AI can learn a brand’s culture and respond to customers in the required style, helping guests appreciate a hotel’s unique vibe from the start.”
AI in hospitality isn’t about replacing the human touch but enhancing it. By automating routine tasks, AI allows staff to focus on more meaningful guest interactions, like offering personalized local tips or addressing urgent requests that only a human can handle.
15 use cases of AI in hospitality
Shahar believes AI-powered smart hotel technology can transform multiple areas of the hospitality industry. He suggests, “to look at hospitality AI as a whole. Artificial intelligence in the hospitality industry can cover several operational and customer-facing touch points, giving hotels more time and money to boost the entire guest experience, improving speed of response and quality of services.”
Here are 15 ways hotels can use AI.
Guest experience
1. AI-powered customer support
Hotels can boost the guest experience through AI-enabled customer service technology. Chatbots respond to information requests during the booking process, and digital concierges provide tailored recommendations before and during the guest’s stay.
AI also plays a crucial role in providing round-the-clock, multilingual support. This is particularly beneficial for hotels catering to international guests, as it eliminates language barriers and ensures efficient communication.
By providing timely responses and a seamless guest experience throughout the customer journey, hotels can enhance guest satisfaction, leading to increased bookings.
2. Personalized services
“The hospitality business is about helping to create amazing experiences for people who are coming to create memories. AI can help hotels achieve this,” says Shahar.
AI enables hotels to tap into guest data and social media trends to offer more personalized services and experiences. By analyzing past preferences, hotels can customize upsells, such as offering early check-in based on previous requests and personalizing smart rooms to meet individual guest needs. This allows hotels to impress their guests by having their preferred on-demand entertainment ready on the smart TV—a feature that 45% of travelers say makes for an amazing stay.
And, with flight details linked to reservations, hotels can proactively adjust for delays or early arrivals, ensuring the room is prepared precisely when needed. This enhances the guest experience and helps reduce energy consumption by optimizing room readiness.
Such a high level of personalization not only increases guest satisfaction and loyalty but also frees up staff time, enabling them to focus on further elevating the guest experience.
3. Review analysis
While hotels can use AI to send automated guest review requests, they can also leverage it to analyze feedback. AI uses natural language processing (NLP) to recognize patterns in guest reviews, no matter the volume. And, the integration of Business Intelligence (BI) with AI allows hotels to create powerful visualizations, helping them analyze data in a more intuitive and insightful way.
AI can detect and flag recurring complaints, positive feedback, and trends in reviews. It can also automatically create tasks for the staff member who needs to solve a previously identified problem. This automated information processing and task allocation helps hotels act quickly to fix problems, adjust their operations or marketing strategies to match trends, and double down on providing the services guests appreciate most.
With review automation and analysis, hotels can enhance guest satisfaction while discovering new ways to boost loyalty.
Operations
4. Enhanced automated task creation
Modern hotels use task management tools to automate the creation of a variety of tasks, from customer service and housekeeping requests to maintenance repairs.
“AI can optimize this process by identifying opportunities for improvement,” Shahar says. “For example, if pest control is scheduled every two months, but complaints about cockroaches arise after a month and a half, AI can determine that the service should be adjusted to every month and a half, recommend using more supplies, or suggest switching to a better service provider.” “Additionally, AI can enhance communication between the service provider and the guest, allowing seamless coordination through the system’s tools,” he adds.
This increases operational efficiency and improves the guest experience, inspiring greater confidence in the hotel’s efficiency and care.
5. Automated accounting
Automated financial management with AI for hotels means simplifying expense tracking, accounting, and tax preparation while minimizing manual hours and human error.
Shahar aims for Boom to provide a more seamless experience in accounting and bookkeeping within the hospitality industry. “AI in hospitality can move between departments to provide more immediate solutions, like automated delivery of invoices and payment receipts. This eliminates the time-consuming email exchanges between accounting and sales, saving everyone time and energy.”
Boom’s AI accounting features include instant, customized reports and data entry with automated categorization and P&L analysis. This automation enables properties to make better decisions on how to optimize revenue and where to decrease expenses.
6. Data-driven insights
With AI, hotels can turn complex data into easy-to-understand reports. This saves them time in identifying strategies to maximize growth.
As Shahar says, “Before AI, hotel expenses could have been $100,000 a month. After AI, it’s $30,000, allowing much more profitability.”
“With more money saved, there’s greater potential to reinvest in enhancing the guest experience at various touch points. By allocating an additional $20,000, you can strengthen the connection with guests and tourists, ultimately creating a remarkable experience for them,” he adds.
Boom’s data-driven insights help properties see trends in financial data—from revenue and expenses to payroll—to forecast demand, manage risk, and make data-driven decisions, improving ROI. Boom also enables properties to benchmark themselves against specific competitors or industry averages, sparking new insights to gain a competitive edge.
Sustainability
7. Energy management
Over 74% of hotels surveyed in a 2023 study said they planned on using AI for energy management, which can help optimize utilities use based on real-time insights.
For instance, hotel AI-powered systems can turn room lighting and air conditioning on or off according to occupancy (or based on information about flight arrivals and delays, as mentioned above). It can also analyze booking and weather patterns to manage energy more efficiently, like automatically deactivating central heating on warm winter days. With the Internet of Things, hotels can integrate AI tools with their building management systems to monitor energy across various areas of the hotel to identify further energy-saving opportunities.
By using AI, hotels can reduce energy costs without sacrificing guest comfort.
8. Waste reduction
Hotels like Hilton (more on this below) are turning to AI to implement sustainable best practices, like waste reduction.
AI analyzes real-time and historical guest data and occupancy rates along with dining trends to help manage food inventory. This allows hotels to predict demand for specific dishes and meals, ensuring they purchase the right quantities and avoid food surpluses that could lead to spoilage.
Hotels can also rely on AI to adjust their food inventory in real-time, based on last-minute booking or event changes. AI identifies waste patterns, offering chefs insights to refine meal preparation and portions to further reduce food costs, waste, and carbon emissions.
9. Housekeeping and maintenance
Hotels can rely on AI’s automation and analysis to optimize housekeeping and maintenance efforts.
Technology allows hoteliers to discreetly monitor room occupancy, ensuring that housekeeping only enters when rooms are vacant. AI can detect patterns in guest behavior to automatically trigger the restocking of room supplies. Through predictive maintenance, AI can analyze a hotel’s infrastructure, identifying potential issues with elevators or HVAC systems before they break.
With AI, hotels can prevent repairs, reduce maintenance costs, and improve service quality while achieving greater efficiency.
Revenue management
10. Predictive demand analysis
AI’s predictive demand analysis uses historical booking data, holidays, local events, market trends, and weather patterns to predict demand, allowing hotels to maximize revenue opportunities.
With AI, hotels can predict spikes in demand during conferences or special events, such as music concerts. This allows them to adjust rates accordingly and market their offers more strategically. They can also prepare ahead of time, ensuring they have enough staff, supplies, and food on hand.
These data-driven demand insights help hotels improve their ROI, enhance staff and inventory management, and minimize the risks of underbooking or overbooking.”
11. Pricing optimization
Just as AI can predict demand, it can also provide the insights hotels need to refine their pricing strategies and boost revenue. By analyzing big data—including booking trends, competitor pricing, seasonality, and real-time demand—AI enables hotels to adjust their rates dynamically.
Many hotel experts trust AI to boost room profitability. For example, AI allows hotels to respond quickly when their competitors change their rates, enabling them to maintain their competitive edge. AI can also detect changes in booking windows, suggesting price adjustments to attract guests during slower periods and increase occupancy.
AI helps hotels find the right pricing to maximize revenue and occupancy while remaining competitive and profitable.
12. Occupancy optimization
Similarly to pricing optimization, hotels can use AI to maximize occupancy.
AI performs demand analysis to adjust room rates and boost occupancy. For example, during low-demand periods, AI can offer target audiences special deals across specific channels to fill more rooms. When standard rooms are full, AI can increase premium room occupancy through targeted upgrade offers, identifying guests who are likely to pay more.
This technology enables hotels to achieve a balance between improving occupancy rates while maintaining profitability, all in real time.
Marketing
13. Listing content creation
AI can help with creating a wide range of content, from writing emails and descriptions to responding to guest reviews.
With machine learning for hotels, AI can analyze a hotel’s amenities, location, and key value propositions to craft customized, engaging, and SEO-friendly listings for multiple Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) in seconds. As Shahar says, “This includes selecting the ideal first picture, refining the listing description, and adjusting both based on the time of year. Additionally, AI can help determine the best order of images to highlight seasonal appeal and guest preferences, further enhancing the listing’s visibility and boosting guest engagement.”
AI also adapts the tone and style of descriptions to suit different platforms. For example, it can tailor experience-focused descriptions for Airbnb, while emphasizing value for money on sites like Trivago. In addition, AI makes localization a breeze by instantly translating content into multiple languages, enabling hotels to reach a global audience and maximize bookings.
14. Automated promotional offers
AI helps create and automate the right promotion at the right time for the right target audience.
By analyzing real-time data on guest behavior, booking history, and preferences, AI can generate personalized deals within seconds. For example, it can identify repeat guests and send them customized upgrades or offer discounts on services they’ve previously enjoyed, such as spa treatments. Hotels can also rely on AI to choose the best times to offer discounts, for example, during off seasons, unusually slow periods, or whenever a revenue boost is needed.
Hotels can even use AI to automate special prices based on demand or customer segmentation. This ensures guests receive tailored promotions while hotels boost occupancy and revenue, saving time and reducing marketing effort.
15. Loyalty programs
AI-driven loyalty programs can personalize rewards to match individual guest preferences.
By analyzing guest data—like spending habits, length of stay, and amenities used—AI can identify trends and create tailored offers. These personalized rewards can take the form of upgrades, special deals on additional services or specific dates, or discounts on local experiences.
What’s more, AI can forecast when repeat guests are most likely to book again, allowing hotels to automate the sending of targeted offers at optimal times. This enhances guest engagement and increases the likelihood of securing bookings.
3 examples of Artificial Intelligence in the hospitality industry
1. How Hilton uses AI to reduce food waste across its global chain
As a global leader in AI in the hospitality industry, Hilton is also a pioneer in reducing food waste with the help of AI-powered analytics tools.
With Winnow, Hilton tracks and analyzes waste data in real time by recording discarded food items. In addition, LightStay, an ESG management system used throughout the Hilton group to save energy, measures the amount of food produced and discarded. Together, these AI tools identify insights to provide chefs with the data needed to optimize meal prep, such as new portion sizes, modified cooking methods, and adjusted inventory.
The results are significant. For example, when Hilton repeated its eco-friendly initiative of Green Ramadan in 2024, here is what it achieved:
- 4,300 meals saved, equal to 1.7 tons of plated food
- 21% of reduced food waste
- 7.4 tons of CO2 emissions prevented
2. How Marriott enhances the guest experience with local recommendations vetted by humans and delivered with AI
RENAI is the AI-powered virtual concierge service available at select Marriott Renaissance Hotels. It offers guests insider tips for dining, shopping, and entertainment. But RENAI doesn’t source its insights from the Web. Instead, it relies on personalized picks from Marriott Navigators—human hotel associates who explore the community and feed their insights into RENAI.
Based on guest preferences, RENAI’s conversational AI can suggest bars with the best vibes or the top culinary experiences in the vicinity. RENAI even knows when to suggest that guests meet with Hotel Navigators in person, so they can get further insights, a more tailored experience, or even personalized itineraries.
RENAI is one of the best use cases for how humans and hospitality artificial intelligence can collaborate effectively to enhance the guest experience. It also shows how hotels can better accommodate guests by providing more immersive local experiences and collaborating with local businesses and guides.
3. How a boutique hotel in downtown Chicago showcases its rooms with virtual tours and more
EMC2, a luxury boutique hotel part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, makes visiting their property before arrival an experience in itself.
On its website, guests can explore different rooms, diving virtually into every space to appreciate the design and layout as if they were standing in the room itself.
But the technology doesn’t stop there. Once guests are physically in the room, they can take advantage of Amazon Alexa voice-controlled support, active 24/7. They can also use text messages to make hotel restaurant reservations or order in-room dining, which the hotel’s robots, Cleo and Leo, will be happy to deliver.
FAQ
How is AI being used in the hospitality industry?
AI in the hospitality industry has multiple use cases. Digital concierges, data analysis, and smart rooms enhance and personalize the guest experience. Chatbots and automated tasks improve customer service. Predictive demand analysis and pricing optimization make revenue management easier while increasing margins. And AI-powered systems increase efficiency in hotel operations and save energy.
What is the best AI for the hospitality industry?
The best AI for hospitality improves the guest experience while making hotels more efficient. For example, real-time data analysis can forecast demand, increase revenue, and identify guest preferences and grievances. Task automation includes responding to guest information queries and triggering maintenance requests. And digital concierges offer 24/7 support and information.
What are the disadvantages of AI in the hospitality industry?
AI in hospitality can present disadvantages, which are sometimes ethical in nature. AI often uses sensitive guest details, including payment and identity data, making enhanced data protection crucial. Hospitality jobs may decrease if hotels prioritize profitability over people. And an overreliance on AI can reduce human interaction to the point of alienating travelers. The key is to balance AI with a human touch.
Are you a hospitality tech startup looking to build your brand’s reputation through strategic PR? Drop us a line.
