AI for hotels and resorts: what it can do for your team today
“AI” now covers a lot of different software. For a hotel or resort the useful question is narrower: which jobs can it take off your team today, and which should it leave alone? This post goes through the jobs where it already works, and the ones that still need a person.
Answering the phone
The phone is where AI is most direct for hotels, because each missed call can be a missed booking. An AI phone assistant answers in ordinary speech, so guests ask in their own words instead of pressing numbers.
What it can do depends on what it is connected to. With access to your booking system it checks availability, quotes rates, and books or changes a stay. With access to the restaurant and spa diaries it books those too. Without any connection it answers questions and takes messages.
It answers from information you give it once: check-in times, parking, pets, the way from the airport. It also speaks the guest’s language, which matters for hotels with guests from abroad. Our posts on AI receptionists for resorts and multilingual AI receptionists go into both.
Calling guests before they arrive
The same assistant can make calls. A call a few days before arrival confirms the arrival time and offers what the guest might want: a transfer, a late check-in, dinner on the first night.
In that call the assistant found out the guest would arrive late, checked the restaurant’s last orders, booked a table and left a note for reception. A front desk could do the same, if someone had time to call every arriving guest.
Messages and reviews
Guests also write: emails, website chat, WhatsApp. AI tools for messages can answer the simple ones from your information and pass the rest to staff. Replystate works on the phone, so this is a separate tool, but the questions are often the same.
For reviews, AI is good at a first draft of a reply, which someone on your team then reads and edits before it goes out.
Pricing
Revenue management systems have adjusted room rates automatically for years. They set prices from your booking history and demand in your area. They still need someone who looks at the rates they set and overrides them when they know something the system doesn’t, such as a local event.
What your calls tell you
When an AI assistant answers your phone, every call is written down. You can read each one and see why guests called, what they asked for that you don’t offer, and which questions keep coming up. That is useful whoever answers the phone: a question that comes up every day probably belongs on your website, in confirmation emails, or both.
What to leave with your staff
Some jobs need a person, and you decide which with rules, for example:
- Weddings, events and group bookings go to the events team.
- A guest who is unhappy with their stay goes to the duty manager.
- Refund requests go to the reservations manager.
When the assistant transfers a call, it passes on what the guest has already said. If nobody is free, it takes a message.
Where to start
Start with one job where the work repeats every day and a miss costs you bookings. For most hotels that is the phone. Your phone system or provider can usually show how many calls went unanswered last week, and when.
Then start small. Let the assistant answer at night and when the front desk hasn’t picked up, read its calls for a week, and fix any rule it got wrong. Give it daytime calls and outgoing calls when you’re happy with it.
About Replystate
Replystate makes an AI phone assistant that answers and makes calls for hotels, resorts and other businesses. Our team connects it to your systems and writes the first rules with you. After that you can change it yourself in the dashboard, where you can read every call and see what the assistant did. To hear it with your own hotel, get in touch.
Questions
Will AI replace our front desk staff?
It takes the repetitive calls: availability, prices, directions, simple changes. Your team still handles guests in the hotel and the calls that need judgement.
Does it work with our booking system?
Replystate works with systems such as Mews, Cloudbeds and Little Hotelier, and with restaurant and spa booking tools. If you use something else, our team can connect it.
Will guests know they are talking to an AI?
If a guest asks, it tells them it is an AI assistant, and it can pass them to someone on your team.
Can it call guests as well as answer them?
Yes. It can call guests before arrival, remind them about bookings and call back people who asked about a stay.
Which languages does it speak?
23. It answers in the language the guest speaks and switches if they do.