Sharing The Knowledge: Artificial Intelligence in Hotels

Artificial Intelligence in Hotels and Chatbots

Artificial Intelligence in Hotels is the final part of our knowledge sharing series. A few weeks ago I began our knowledge sharing series with the first four articles on Hotel TV.

This was followed by a post all about 5G in hotels. They all talk about the successful #LinkedInLive broadcast I did with FunnelTV.

While the focus was guest room technology in 2020 we focussed initially almost totally on Hotel TV. The topic became so interesting and the excellent feedback from our viewers meant it stayed pretty much at the top of our agenda.

What’s amazing is, we’ve got much more to say in the future.

This post moves on slightly, as directed by audience questions. In this post we take a look into AI, Artificial Intelligence in hotels, and of course the most popular application, Chatbots.

If you, like me, think sharing of knowledge is beneficial, please get in touch. I’d love to be able to facilitate the sharing of knowledge through my site, blog and FunnelTV.

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A Hotel Technology & Travel Technology blog by HotelTCS. Every week we cover topics concerning Technology in the Hospitality Industry. Looking at subjects such as IPTV, HSIA, WiFi, GPON and IoT, we give you the insider info on Smart Hotels and Intelligent Hotel Deployments. Subscribe below for updates!

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Just a reminder, we were joined by the following excellent guests:

Enzo Aita – FunnelTV

Christoph Hutter – FunnelTV & Revenue Consultant

James Harrison – HotelTCS

Nick Price – NetSys

Darren King – ROOMNET

Hannu Vahokoski – Hotelway

Joe Griffin – Hotelway

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Artificial Intelligence in Hotels

As I said before, the long agenda went out the window. We spent so much time focusing on Hotel TV, however the last segment focused on Artificial Intelligence in Hotels. Here’s what we came up with.

Communication is Key

The first point we established is that communication is not just a part of the booking process. It’s easy to think that answering a guest’s question during the booking process means they will be readily armed with all the information they need come the time that they stay.

Guest communication is not without both challenges and staff overhead. This is where chatbots come in both in-stay and pre-stay.

New guests will have a multitude of questions, and getting those questions answered quickly, and easily is a route to success.

Avoiding the Anonymous Experience

Human contact is an integral part of the hotel experience. Guests crave contact but it’s a mistake to think that this is always face to face.

You need to be able to answer those multiple guest questions via the channel that suits them. More often than not this is through their own device.

With the move towards contactless check-in and mobile booking it would seem that this communication is not required. That is totally the inverse of what is happening. The expectation now is the answer at your fingertips, not a phone call and hold music away.

Chatbots of the Past

Historically there have been chatbots which provide a poor experience. One important point we established, is that among certain generations, they don’t want to feel like they are talking to a chatbot.

This is different to the Millennial and Genzennial generations, who actually feel happy as long as they get the answers they need. In fact, some companies have experienced users repeatedly chatting to their chatbot just for company.

As a member of the Millennial generation myself, I’m quite happy talking to a chatbot as long as I get the information I need.

Key Take Aways

• Guest communication is important during booking, pre-stay and in-stay
• Human contact is very important, but it needn’t always be face to face
• Modern guests want answers at their fingertips, any time, any place
• Chatbots are fine, as long as they deliver clear answers
• Integration with existing communication channels increases uptake
• Integration with ticketing or staff management platforms increases satisfaction and reduces lost in translation mistakes.

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Thanks As Always

I say this every time, but thanks to the over 500 live viewers we got during the show and all those who commented, you were fantastic! The interaction makes the knowledge sharing so worthwhile.

I’d also love to hear people’s suggestions on what else we should cover. Let me know in the comments below!

In a coming series over posts of the next 2 weeks I will cover in more depth what we talked about, for those who missed it.

Make sure you subscribe to our mailing list to keep up to date with all the latest posts! Remember to add info@hoteltcs.com to your safe sender’s list!

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Hospitality tech VLOG

If you want to see more of the recordings, they are now up on my Youtube Channel The HotelTCS Hospitality tech VLOG! Click the button below to subscribe and view!

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I hope you are all a passionate as I am about sharing the knowledge. Watch out over the coming days and weeks for more posts on the fascinating topic of Hotel TV. Please also connect with me on LinkedIn and follow HotelTCS for even more conversation and knowledge sharing!

Also, please check out some of my other articles, such as “A Hotel is Just a Building”, “Can Intelligent Hotels find their voice?” and “The Fate of Hotel HSIA”. The latter being referenced in the VLOG!