For decades, hotels have relied on small personal touches to make their guests feel unique -welcome notes, balloons or cakes for birthdays. Those personal touches are often hard to apply systematically. However, in 2025, hospitality companies can leverage technology and data for hyper-personalization.
Concretely, what does that mean? Well instead of one-size-fits-all guest journeys, hotels have the possibility to anticipate special needs before the guest arrival. AI analyzes data points such as past bookings, social media posts, and loyalty program activity. AI can build a profile with such information, including their favorite type of music, special requests that may already be in the room, such as champagne or warm sheets. The personalization can even go further, like Otonomus Hotel in the US that creates digital twin avatars of the guest to gamify the onboarding experience. In this hotel, clients can also adjust the ambiance in their rooms, changing the lighting, temperature and other settings. AI is then used to track energy consumption, and the customer is offered a sustainability discount for “energy-conscious guests”
AI is also used during the stay, with the development of AI-virtual concierges, who recommend experiences and addresses based on the guest’s interest, a mix of discussion and the data previously collected. At the same time, AI is used to optimize operations in the hotel, ensuring that the staff and resources are ready to answer and anticipate any needs from the guests.
For the hotel staff, the AI allows a perfect “wow” moment. Tailoring experiences perfectly to guests, anticipating needs they had not identified yet. Offering spa treatment to a stressed business traveler, or a late checkout for a couple’s weekend escape. It is the perfect way to boost guest satisfaction, add value to the stay, enhance loyalty, and of course, increase revenue!
As often happens when AI is used to analyze data, privacy and authenticity can be at risk. The objective is not to monitor guests during or before their stay. Above all, guests want to feel understood. AI could help staff prepare for conversations and improve overall hotel operations.
Sources: https://hospitalityinsights.ehl.edu/ai-hospitality
https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/business-strategy/ai-hospitality.shtml
I have worked in Hospitality for 7 years, and I will not lie, what you touch upon in the article is a very relevant topic that was commonly brought up for discussion in my previous study. Whenever we would debate about it, though, as hospitality students, it was very evident that, despite this fascinating technology in place, people’s nature still strives for connection, with the local people, with the new places, and AI could never attempt to remove that. However, having an AI-powered PMS is something that the industry invests heavily in, as there is so much potential to move away from the traditional systems that are so incredibly user-unfriendly and slow, requiring a lot of manual input to get things right for the guest. I believe that companies like MEWS are completely revolutionizing the future for the worldwide hoteliers.