As arguably the biggest technological development of this generation by far, artificial intelligence is hard to avoid, and this is particularly true for hospitality businesses. Hotel operators are under increased pressure to adopt AI technologies as part of their marketing strategies, though there’s one sizeable concern: losing the human touch.
It has become all too easy for hotel businesses in particular to accidentally drift away from good AI usage in marketing over to the bad side. There’s a definite sense of having to toe the fine line, but what are some of the biggest talking points and concerns for companies within this sector?
Appealing To AI Searches
It’s a given that hotel guests will start to search for travel experiences through AI search engines. Many travellers now use ChatGPT to help plan a holiday – and this will involve ChatGPT recommending some hotels for their stay. It has created a huge shift in hotel SEO, with the emphasis now on being visible within AI searches.
As a consequence, hotel businesses need to appeal to AI without losing the human touch in their content. It means more informational guides and FAQs on their websites, and this creates a massive need for written content. The temptation is to generate all of this instantly with AI tools, but that’s where you drift over the line and get rid of the human connection. Content restructuring may be in order to be visible in AI searches but it’s important that this content is created by humans, for humans.
Using AI For Personalisation
One of the smartest AI uses is to call upon AI-powered analytics tools to understand your prospective guests better than ever before. Hotel companies can use artificial intelligence to learn more about what a guest likes, which allows them to tailor marketing preferences to suit each individual. It’s great for retargeting, but it can also help to capture lost leads.
This is one of the examples of good AI usage for hotels that’s hard to get wrong. Ultimately, it’s just a way to refine marketing campaigns and show better options to users. For instance, if a user is on your hotel booking site and spends a lot of time on luxury rooms, you can throw up automated pop-ups with special deals tailored to luxury rooms, encouraging a booking.
AI Tools And Hotel Imagery
Generative AI is probably one of the most contentious talking points within the AI industry as a whole. People are split over how this should be used – or even if we should have access to tools that can generate images and videos with a prompt. It’s become a massive debate within the hospitality sector, mainly because some hotel companies now present AI-generated room images.
When it comes to toeing the line between good and bad AI usage, this is perhaps the biggest example of it in action. Good AI usage involves tools that enhance real room imagery. You’re looking at an app that can brighten parts of a room or get rid of small blemishes at the tap of a button. It’s a way of making a photo look even more professional – consider it photo editing, but way more powerful and easier for the average person to use.
On the other hand, bad AI usage involves generating images of hotel rooms via prompts. Instead of taking actual photos, you simply get an AI tool to produce the photos for you. It’s not genuine and will immediately be flagged by consumers as a reason to distrust your hotel. Another example of slipping over to the dark side of AI is to take a photo of a hotel room and then use generative AI to add in other features, like furniture, people, etc.
Again, this is how you land in hot water with prospective guests and can turn them away. People need to trust a hotel before booking, and the bare minimum they expect is for the hotel to have real images or videos of rooms.
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AI Chatbot Customer Service
AI-powered chatbots are nothing new, but the developments in AI have led some hotel businesses to rely on them more than ever. Is this a good thing? It depends – and this is where hotel operators need to be careful. Most consumers don’t mind talking to chatbots when they have simple questions to ask. For example, is breakfast included with the room rate? What time is check-in? Is a late checkout allowed?
Most modern AI chatbots are smart enough to answer these types of questions and to perform tasks like amending someone’s booking to add breakfast or a late checkout. When used like this, AI gives hotels an even better customer experience and can lead to better interactions with the business as a whole.
Nevertheless, there is always a point where chatbots become too much and human involvement is necessary. For any complex queries or tasks that involve sensitive information, hotels need to call upon a human customer service team.
Also, the simple fact that some guests may prefer to call a hotel needs to be taken into account. Good AI chatbot usage involves having these tools to answer simple queries while also keeping the human customer service element for anyone who needs it. Whether that’s through a phone number or a simple button on the chatbot that requests a human advisor, it helps toe the line perfectly.
AI In Reviews
Lastly, there’s the concept of AI in hotel reviews. Good usage would be to have an AI summary that highlights all the key talking points from a bunch of reviews, both good and bad. It’s useful for prospective guests, as this could pick out some recurring themes that people either like or dislike. All the while, a consumer can still scroll through reviews individually.
Awful AI usage would be to generate lots of fake reviews. Unfortunately, it’s easy for companies to do this, and so you find a lot of hotels with fake reviews nowadays. The thing is, consumers can spot this, and it is not worth the reputational risk in the slightest.
The overarching theme from all of this is that hotels can use AI in their marketing strategies to great effect, but there is always this invisible line that should not be crossed. Being able to reap the benefits of AI marketing technologies without drifting over the line is quickly becoming the key to success in modern hospitality.
