Driving experience with a hybrid

Hybrids have met a need throughout the history of human industry - we wouldn’t be where we are today without the noble mule - and creating something which takes the best of two elements has never been more relevant than with the use of AI in hospitality. 

There are concerns that AI is out to take our jobs, to try and deliver a hotel with nothing but robots, but I believe that the most productive model is one where AI is a team member. 

This view was echoed on my panel at the HTNG Connect gathering in Manchester, where I was joined by Sanjay Sharma, CTO, Orascom Hotels Management, Sean Seah, SVP strategy, technology & innovation, Langham Hospitality Group, Mollie’s’ managing director Darren Sweetland and Marco Correia, CIO, Mercan Properties.  

Darren talked about using AI to empower staff, through generative AI, which aided communication with guests, predictive AI, which helped with revenue management and then leveraging AI in existing software solutions, like PowerBI, to enrich them.

The early results have been promising at Mollies, with response time dropping by 61.1% and average sentiment score increasing by 9%. 

That last KPI is critical to driving engagement and improving experience, generating the kind of real loyalty which is the goal of all hotels, and which many may have thought could only be achieved using human teams alone. 

The luxury hotel sector has been more resistant than others to certain technology. There is a clear advantage to minimising team numbers in other sectors, most notably budget, which has embraced the A in AI. But the luxury sector prides itself on the human connection, the personal touch. Some suspect that not only can technology not deliver luxury service, but that guests don’t want it.

The demographic of luxury travellers is changing rapidly. Eighty-one percent are under 41 years old and 75% are highly educated, with a master's degree or higher. These guests are not only used to using their smart phones to communicate with service providers, they prefer to. Messaging has been a huge success for our luxury clients, with engagement reaching 70% of guests at some properties and usage strongly correlated with higher-value stays. We have been able to personalise the experience so that guests don’t feel as though they are talking or shouting at a chatbot.  

These guests are already used to AI. They already use it in their jobs, organise their days, personalise their healthcare, and learn foreign languages. The sudden interest in ChatGPT drew our attention to generative AI, possibly because of the threat many content creators in roles requiring written content felt it posed an end to their jobs. Generative AI is working through its issues. It’s only as good as the information it is given. But as it is fed more information it is improving, at a startling speed.

For the hotel sector, AI as it currently stands offers the chance to deliver that which luxury hotels have had as their sole aim since their inception: rapid personalised service. AI can be your sidekick, your inspired assistant, or your data entry team crunching data around the clock.

AI can deepen your understanding of the guest, combining preferences, profile, and previous stay data with your existing knowledge of them to create a 360 view, which will allow you to deliver a truly tailored experience and drive a remarkable stay and a lifetime of loyalty.

AI will also help you increase your understanding of the context, combining the stay itinerary with local knowledge, local events, and seasonal activities with your recommendations, building the ultimate concierge. We have heard a great deal about the growing importance of experience to guests; it’s not enough to have a stunning property, that is now just the backdrop to the memories you can help foster.

The final step is to use AI to combine your suggestions with automatically-generated recommendations, delivered by the hotel in a personalised digital itinerary.

These three elements come together to produce unique, personalised, and efficient customer experiences, which our clients have seen lift customer engagement, and satisfaction and generate additional revenues.

One of the most important factors to embrace when considering introducing AI as a team member is that you are always in control. At all points, you control how your service is delivered and your relationship with your guests. It is curated, controlled, and moderated by you.

In writing about the mule, Charles Darwin said: “That a hybrid should possess more reason, memory, obstinacy, social affection, powers of muscular endurance, and length of life, than either of its parents, seems to indicate that art has here outdone nature”. 

A good hotel can feel like a work of art. It’s time to embrace the hybrid.