Technology evolution progresses the course of development across products and services. The concept of Artificial Intelligence in hospitality is much broader and pervasive than increased revenue.
AI in hospitality is widely used to drive guest loyalty, improve recommendations, and maximize customer experience. The objective in the hospitality industry may all be the same, which is to provide great service and improve guest stay; but to stay competitive, AI helps in maintaining a balance between tasks and customers by providing great service with exceptional attention to details.
With AI’s ability to increase operational efficiency, boost revenue and optimize experience, the hospitality industry is leaning towards a guest-centric approach.
The future of AI in Hospitality
The future of Artificial Intelligence in the hospitality sector is very promising as it not only helps to bring in revenue, but it also provides customized solutions and experience to the customers.
According to Gartner, AI will be a mainstream customer experience investment in the coming years. Also, 47% of organizations will use AI-powered chatbots for customer care, and 40% will deploy virtual assistants.
For example, leveraging AI in hospitality can predict orders and reservation requests from guests. Apart from this, it also enhances voice assistants to create a more efficient and fast experience.
Further, AI also helps to communicate with the customers in a more friendly way. This allows the service provider to better understand your needs, which then leads to customized services for a better experience.
A few examples to show how AI is taking the hospitality industry by storm:
- The American multinational hospitality company Hilton has opted for the new AI-based concierge, Connie, to transform the guests’ experience. Connie is supposed to be the first-ever AI-enabled robot with a two-inch height. Connie performs like a human concierge and assists the arriving hotel guests at the front desk.
- Another use of AI is in Winnow solutions, which helps to cut the food waste by half and decrease food costs by 2-8%. With winnow’s AI-enabled tool, kitchens can automatically track food waste. The AI tool produces the daily report of food waste and solves the most common known problem of food waste. This helps the owner to deal with the reason for wastage.
- The Cosmopolitan, one of Las Vegas’ luxury resorts introduced Rose (a bot) as their AI concierge years back. The guests are given a card with Rose’s number when they check in. They can use the card to text or call Rose for anything that is required or needed by them throughout their stay. AI helps the staff to anticipate the requirements of the guest. The future of AI in hospitality can be calculated from the fact that it is continuously in use and in favour of tech advancement.
Below are some of the ways how AI is shaping the future of hospitality in the advanced digital era:
Customer Service
The current way to meet and greet is run of the mill. Now is the time to make use of robotics to give a different experience and seamlessly capture user requirements so as to provide them with high-quality customer service.
Creating a bespoke experience for the customers with some personal touches helps create a healthy relationship and customer loyalty. The integration of AI in every field is pervasive and is changing our living process.
With the help of AI one can easily implement a personal touch to draw people to the business and bring in personalized and sophisticated customer engagement.
Brand Reputation
AI is not only limited to databases and communication, but it is also a big umbrella sheltering different concepts and ideas to help the business grow.
AI has the potential to transform almost every facet of the hospitality business, be it customer support, brand reputation, booking and staffing, rate optimization, and many more. With constant growth and experience, AI is on the path to becoming more accessible and easy to use for the workforce.
The hospitality business is all about how you give your guests a differentiated experience. Thus, reputation management is essential in this business. It matters what people think and say about your business. The combined ability of AI and virtual assistants caters to customers by providing them easy-to-use smart services.
Rate Optimization and Demand Forecasting
Demand forecasting is important to give your business a boost. Price fluctuation depends on the season, occasion, trends, and various other factors. AI helps you to compete in the market by adjusting your day to day pricing and keeping up with trends. Once you are aware of the pattern of demand and price in the market, it is easy to understand the occupancy pattern and thus act accordingly to maximize profit.
Airbnb is one example of a company that forecasts its day to day market prices and occupancy pattern. Machine learning, based on vast data, allows AI systems to improve pricing and promotional recommendations daily. This, in turn, lets the authority to focus on strategic decisions.
Chatbots
Lately, chatbots have taken the glam when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. Chatbots are walking the ramp with its feature to provide information to the customer, have a friendly conversation with customers, and assist them in booking and other queries. Intelligent AI chatbots are programmed in a way to assist in concise and efficient interactions between humans and machines.
These chatbots provide great convenience to the customers 24*7 through availability, fast service delivery, and valuable information. The chatbot sends the required inquiry to guest relations and then adds the answer to its database for future purposes. With machine learning capabilities, chatbots become smart and anticipate requirements, provide solutions, assist customers on websites, social media, and messaging apps, and take on more responsibilities.
Furthermore, the information collected by chatbots can be used to improve training, revamp automated systems, and produce appropriate self-help options, among other things, or effective marketing campaigns.
Summary
The hospitality industry is opting for artificial intelligence benefits in new ways. From pre customer service interactions to post-arrival of customers, the hospitality sector is changing at an astonishing pace. AI in hospitality is having a positive impact on business momentum, making it work beyond imagination for hotel systems.
Artificial Intelligence wades off the pressure of providing an exceptional experience by delivering luxurious tech-savvy environments, increasing operational efficiency, and searching for new revenue sources. To survive the increasing demands and beat the competition, an AI-based technological innovation is required to upgrade services and enhance customer experience.
Also Read: Advantages of Artificial Intelligence in Business Processes