Interactive Artificial Intelligence A Turning Point in the Hospitality and Hotel Sector
With the advent of Conversational AI, the hotel industry has a transformative tool to deliver fast, personalized, and cost-effective customer service 24/7.
Interactive AI technology is currently revolutionizing this sector; here we will explain its role, exceptional benefits, and use cases:
First: What is interactive artificial intelligence and how do hotels use it?
Interactive AI-powered tools, also known as digital service agents and bots, are designed to assist travelers and guests. For example, a digital booking agent can help people find and book a flight or guest room, a voice assistant can guide them through the airport or hotel with clear and helpful directions, and a virtual concierge can be used to check into a hotel immediately without having to wait at the front desk, adjust room conditions, order room service, and get recommendations for local attractions.
Interactive AI uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) to interact with users in human language, performing a range of different tasks.
Adopting interactive AI in hotel services provides immediate and personalized assistance, improving the guest experience. A study by Oracle revealed that 67% of travelers were interested in staying at hotels that offer AI-powered services, and 36% preferred to stay at hotels that offer fully digital, contactless services with staff available only on demand.
Second: Benefits of using interactive artificial intelligence in the hotel sector:
Interactive AI can perform an unimaginable number of tasks. Klarna, an online travel booking service, revealed after the first month of launching its AI-powered assistant that a single assistant can make 2.3 million phone calls a month, do the work of 700 full-time travel agents, speak more than 35 languages, work around the clock in 23 different markets, provide more accurate answers than human agents, process customer inquiries five times faster than humans, and save the company more than $40 million annually.
This means that artificial intelligence provides countless benefits in the hotel and hospitality sector, the most prominent of which are:
1- Speeding up and facilitating search and reservation processes:
With so many options, it can be difficult for travelers to find the right hotel; most people tend to call the front desk or use live chat to make a reservation and get instant answers to their questions. Any problem with this service such as slow response or failure to respond immediately will make customers go to another hotel.
This is where AI assistants come in to provide information instantly across all digital channels, offering guidance throughout the booking process, leading to increased bookings.
2- Increase guest satisfaction:
The use of interactive AI technology in hotels contributes to making the guest experience unique and unforgettable, especially for those who aspire to high-quality service and maximum comfort.
By integrating an interactive interface across all systems, the needs of the majority who prefer self-service can be met without significant investment in customer service or additional labor costs, and with interactive AI, efficient communications and seamless bookings can be provided to permanent in-stay service and post-stay customer support.
3- Improving hotel operations:
The multitude of repetitive, routine tasks prevent hotel managers from devoting themselves to more challenging tasks, so automating up to 80% of routine work, such as answering common questions, taking reservations, and training employees, means more time to focus on complex, high-value tasks: providing fast, personalized customer service while improving the guest experience.
4- Assist in pricing and increasing sales:
Hotel chatbots can help increase sales of personalized services to guests based on their past interactions and preferences. Since hotel occupancy is highly dependent on seasonality and market competition, AI systems are able to assess these variables in real time and optimize pricing strategies accordingly, ensuring that hotel rates are adjusted quickly and in line with prevailing market conditions and demand patterns.
5- Enhancing customer engagement through personal interactions:
Interactive AI can be used to quickly collect guest reviews, then conduct an in-depth analysis of them and their behavior patterns. The AI can then provide intelligent recommendations for places to visit, entertainment activities, car rental options, and places to eat, all of which contribute to enhancing customer loyalty and encouraging them to visit the hotel again.
6- Improving employee efficiency and overcoming the problem of labor shortage:
Manpower shortages are a major and ongoing challenge for hotels, and can result in long reception lines, limited service hours, and a lack of personal service, leading to lost customers and negative feedback.
This is where AI-powered assistants come in to provide high-quality customer service without overwhelming employees. Most recurring guest inquiries can be resolved instantly by intelligent chatbots without human interaction. Smart, automated routing for hotels helps reduce the number of calls and relieves employee workload, allowing hotel staff to focus on more challenging tasks.
Third: Innovative applications of interactive artificial intelligence in the field of hotels:
Many hospitality and hotel companies are looking to use artificial intelligence in innovative ways to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Here are some examples:
AI-Powered Booking Assistants:
Smart booking systems make hotel bookings easier, and provide instant recommendations based on a person’s interests, ensuring guests feel valued and cared for. Hyatt Hotels has developed its own AI-based booking assistant.
AI-Powered Doormen:
One innovative way to use AI in hotels is through virtual and robotic doormen. These doormen handle different types of guest inquiries and queries. Hilton Hotels has developed a robotic doorman called Connie, which provides quick and accurate assistance to guests. It also learns from guest interactions with machine learning, and evolves its responses to provide personalized suggestions and fast service.
AI-Powered Check-In and Check-Out Kiosks:
Some hotels, such as CitizenM Hotels, are using AI-powered mobile kiosks that allow guests to self-check in and out, reducing wait times and easing the burden on front desk staff.
Voice-activated room controls:
With voice-controlled systems, guests can manage various aspects of their stay and control room features such as opening curtains and adjusting the temperature with their voice, hands-free, giving them added convenience.
All rooms at Wynn Las Vegas are equipped with Amazon Echo devices, allowing guests to use voice commands to control their room features.
AI-Powered Multilingual Chatbots:
AI-powered chatbots can interact with visitors instantly in multiple languages, and manage a variety of their requests, such as requesting housekeeping or getting dining recommendations, allowing hotels to maintain high service standards and meet the needs of international travelers.
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has launched a multilingual AI-powered chatbot to communicate with guests, breaking down language barriers for international travelers and ensuring all visitors receive good service.
Fourth: How can interactive artificial intelligence be integrated into the hotel sector?
Integrating interactive AI into the hotel sector requires a series of steps, including:
1- Choosing the appropriate technology:
The first step to leveraging interactive AI is to choose a tool that offers both natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), speech recognition, sentiment analysis, and robust integration capabilities. Available tools should be evaluated based on their ability to accurately understand and respond to guest inquiries, and their compatibility with existing hotel systems.
The chosen technology should also be able to scale as the hotel business grows and handle the increasing number of user interactions over time, and should support multiple languages and communication channels.
2- Setting goals and designing the conversation flow:
Clear goals for using interactive AI in a hotel should be set, such as improving customer service or reducing waiting times. Then, an interaction flowchart should be set, which may include greetings, inquiries, responses, and follow-ups in clear and concise language. It is preferable to have an alternative plan for scenarios in which the AI cannot understand and respond to inquiries.
3- Training, customization and testing:
After choosing the right technology and defining goals, it is time to train the AI model using relevant high-quality data, customize its functionality to fit the hotel’s specific needs, and then test it to identify and fix any issues before full deployment.
In this context, the following tips can be used:
- Using historical data to train the model, and using feedback so that the AI continuously learns from interactions, and improves over time.
- Start a limited beta to gather feedback and make necessary adjustments.
- Customize conversation templates and AI responses to reflect brand specificity.
- Continuously update and improve the AI system based on guest feedback, usage patterns, and test results.
4- Publishing and integration with existing systems:
After the interactive AI system is developed, it can be deployed and verified to integrate seamlessly with the hotel’s existing systems.
But the rollout should be gradual to minimize disruption and allow for adjustments, continuous communication with IT teams to ensure compatibility and integration for smooth operation, continuous validation of AI integration to identify issues, and a support structure in place to address any issues after deployment and ensure ongoing maintenance.
5- Monitoring and improvement:
The performance of the AI system must be constantly monitored, and adjustments made to ensure it meets the hotel's needs and guest expectations, based on analysis of performance metrics, guest interactions, and system logs to identify areas for improvement.
6- Compliance with laws:
The hotel's AI system must be verified to comply with relevant laws to protect guest data and maintain customer trust. This includes compliance with data privacy laws and regulations, and the Consumer Privacy Act to avoid AI risks, legal issues, reputational damage, and costly mistakes.