Enhancing Hotel Guest Experience with AI Visitor Flow Management
Over the past 10 years, there have been major tech-driven changes and some notable disruptions to how guests find, book, and stay in hotels. Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning models suggest a profound transformation in the hotel industry is also likely, and imminent.
Generative AI is and will most certainly change what guest service looks like in hotels, but the scope of AI, ML, and IoT applications in the hotel environment is vast. One area of interest for many hoteliers is the role of AI-powered solutions in improving operations, maintenance, and demand forecasting for services in the hotel.
Hotels Run by Robots?
Hotels are in no way immune to the labor shortage pinch many industries are facing. And, like others, many hotel networks big and small are looking for automated, smart solutions for on-premises processes.
Those solutions already appear in app-based check-ins, frictionless retail concessions, and software for booking hotel services. Guest types differ, even with the same hotel, and hoteliers are always balancing guests’ service expectations—which are very different for the business and leisure traveler—and cost concerns. Put simply, some travelers have no problem never seeing a hotel employee; others may not expect pampering but want someone they can talk to.
Competing guest expectations will limit the cost savings that can be realized through the automation of guest-centric services for many hotels. Many others are embracing full automation, which cost- and time-conscious travelers seem all too willing to accept.
Those trends don’t change the reality that hotels are resource-intensive operations that still require staff to do work that is not easy to replace with AI—room and facility cleaning, for example.
Rising Guest Expectations, Lowering Operational Costs
AI will help hoteliers maximize resource value, including staff and infrastructure, by integrating massive amounts of relevant data into a neural system that can make optimal decisions, something that’s already done today in rate-setting. Hotels would like to do the same based on what happens onsite.
Capturing accurate, objective, and anonymous data about visitor behavior in hotels will help operators make significant cost reductions while improving the guest experience. Smart building solutions already being used to optimize workplaces, such as office buildings, hold significant potential for hotels.
For example, understanding occupancy trends can support iterative planning for heating and cooling schedules and room distribution, slashing energy costs by linking energy use to actual guest demand. Or communicating real-time occupancy levels for hotel services, such as a spa or pool, to guests via an app, avoiding guest dissatisfaction when a guest arrives to discover an area is too full or empty for their liking.
There are almost endless possibilities for using objective data to improve the performance and cost profile of hotels, and the use cases mentioned above are just the beginning.
Xovis and Hotels of the Future
The surge in interest in smart building solutions that can help owners and facility managers maximize the value of real estate in the retail, office, and healthcare space is impressive and encouraging. It reflects a growing trust in the power of decision-making based on objective data. Interest in the hotel industry is also growing.
In a recent talk with a group of hoteliers, Jan Muller from Eliona—a Switzerland-based company specializing in smart building platform—and I discussed how visitor and occupancy data can be integrated to solicit room distribution and energy optimization strategies from neural networks, a process that is already being used in office buildings. It was great to see the attendees at the event hosted by the FutureHotel project, a research group connected to Germany's prestigious Fraunhofer Institute, enthusiastically discuss a wide range of hypothetical use cases—most of them feasible—and do some back-of-envelope cost-saving calculations that left a lasting impression.
My speaking colleague best summed up the current position when he said, “We are not far away from the future where AI is really giving a proper value and helping save costs and energy consumption just by connecting a few systems in a platform connected directly to an AI-managed building system.” Put another way, the AI future for hotels is already here.
Tags: | automation | AI | occupancy | passengers | guest experience | hotels |
