Patrick Clover, Founder and CEO of Stampede
ABTA’s Holiday Habits 2025-26 report highlights the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the travel sector. ABTA explains that AI is starting to play a bigger role in people’s travel decisions, with the proportion of people using AI to inspire their travels to have doubled in the past 12 months, increasing from 4% to 8%.
ABTA believes this rise and newfound reliance on AI will only grow further in the future, with its research finding that 43% of people would be happy to rely on an AI tool to help plan their holiday, and a further 38% would be confident in letting AI handle their bookings. Also on Booking.com Global AI Sentiment Report. The company’s global research shows that 89% of consumers want to use AI to plan their upcoming trips, and AI assistants (24%) are now considered a more trusted source of information than travel bloggers (19%) or social media influencers (14%).
AI is no longer a futuristic concept. Its adoption is accelerating and is already gaining traction across all sectors of the travel and hospitality industry. For example, in many hotels, AI is quietly transforming the way teams work and the guest experience. AI enables hospitality companies to get closer to their customers and deliver more effective and valued human touches and experiences. Patrick Clover, Founder and CEO stampede Learn how technology and AI can help hotels save time, reduce waste, and create smoother, more personalized stays that guests will remember.
Connect the dots into one system to benefit your guests
One of the powerful applications of AI in the hospitality industry is how it can take vast amounts of customer data and turn it into meaningful insights. These insights can be used to support operations, marketing, and business growth. For example, every reservation, room request, and review allows a hotel to learn something about its guests. However, the challenge for many hotels is gathering all the information quickly so they can act on it.
However, a stumbling block for many hotels is that guest information often resides across multiple disconnected systems, including reservations and PMS platforms, Wi-Fi logins, CRM systems, and review sites. Manually compiling this information is time-consuming, and by the time insights are available, the opportunity for action has passed. This is where AI can add real value. When applied across integrated guest data, AI can automatically identify patterns, predict demand, and highlight opportunities. Hotels can make informed decisions about pricing, staffing, and promotions based on actual guest behavior rather than relying on disparate spreadsheets, data points, and intuition.
Another area where AI can benefit is monitoring competitor pricing. AI-powered pricing tools allow hospitality businesses to constantly monitor competitor rates, demand levels, and local events. So our room rates remain competitive and can be adjusted as needed. If your hotel operates a restaurant or bar, AI can also support inventory forecasting. Predict which dishes will be most popular, manage inventory levels, and highlight profitable combinations so kitchen and food and beverage teams can plan ahead with confidence.
Enjoying this article? Sign up for our free newsletter.
Automate repetitive tasks and free up your guests’ time
AI helps hospitality teams simplify and streamline operations without losing the human touch. AI can take over many day-to-day administrative tasks and automate repetitive tasks in the background, freeing up your staff to focus on delivering a great guest experience elsewhere.
For example, for guest reservations and restaurant reservations, AI tools already automatically send guest confirmations, reminders, and check-in assistance, as well as post-stay messages and review requests. Sales and marketing teams also benefit from information gathered from various AI and automation systems. Using AI, you can analyze and predict busy or slow periods and gain detailed insights into your venue’s performance without spending time on human analysis. This information can also help with household and staff resources. AI helps predict occupancy. This means a balanced staff rotor and reduced overtime. From a facility management perspective, AI can also uncover maintenance issues before they result in last-minute repairs, for example through compliance audits and tracking equipment usage and service history.
There are many areas where AI can improve operational efficiency, but the key is to start small. Choose the one task that takes the most time. Messaging guests and managing staff schedules is often a good place to start. Automate this first, and once you’ve achieved success here and saved your business time, move on to the next area of improvement.
AI provides a personal touch
Typically, in the hotel industry, guests often choose to stay in boutique hotels because of their personality, attention to detail, and personalized guest experience. AI can help hotels across the board deliver the same level of personalized care at scale, across hotel chains of all sizes, without losing personality or warmth. Imagine this situation. Returning guests will be greeted by name, offered their drink of choice, and find their favorite pillow already waiting for them. With AI-powered CRM tools, these thoughtful responses happen seamlessly behind the scenes.
Beyond room reservations, AI can communicate with guests before they arrive to recommend restaurants and local experiences tailored to each guest’s tastes. In moments like these, technology is enhancing hotels’ ability to add value and create more personal, memorable moments that keep guests coming back again and again.
conclusion
Many hotels and hospitality companies are still trying to understand how AI fits into their business. People in this position don’t need to do any complicated setup to see results. The starting point is which repetitive tasks should be automated so that staff can be reallocated to other tasks that improve the guest experience. It is then a case of adapting the appropriate AI processes to this task to facilitate increased efficiency.
Fundamentally, AI is not designed to replace humans. It’s designed to support guests and give hospitality teams the time and insight they need to create warm, memorable stays that guests love. This is where integrated guest engagement technology can support the hotel’s AI and guest experience journey, connecting guest data across touchpoints such as Wi-Fi, marketing, and reviews. Broadly speaking, AI enables hotel operators to better understand and control their business. With AI-powered guest engagement, sales and marketing teams can understand guest behavior, personalize communications, build loyalty, and drive repeat visits and revenue through the power of unified data. Think of it this way, AI can only bring value to your business for both customers and staff
Want great articles from across the hospitality industry straight to your inbox? Click here to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
