Virtual assistants have become a mainstay for hoteliers and other travel service companies, as an efficient way to address customer inquiries and solve basic guest needs and requests. Although usage is pervasive, hoteliers have not yet maximized the effectiveness of conversational AI technology.
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Hotel operators can evolve this capability from an efficient way to address basic FAQs and troubleshooting to an enhancement of intelligent, responsive, and context-aware experiences that facilitate every aspect of the travel journey. More effectively using artificial intelligence will be key to ushering in the next generation of this core capability.
Hotel operators can enable game-changing enhancements not only for the guest experience, but for workforce innovation, intelligent hotel operations, and the enablement of new business models. A well-crafted AI-enabled virtual concierge can be a central linchpin of innovation, delivering a truly connected experience across the travel value chain.
The Next Generation of Guest Experience
Hotel guests want frictionless, reliable and compelling experiences. Timely and insightful assistance and facilitation has become an essential deliverable for the hospitality industry. Customers want hospitality providers to know who they are, anticipate their needs, deliver tailored options to enhance their enjoyment, and resolve problems easily and without hassle.
The ultimate guest experience of the future will be driven by personalized offers based on a member’s individual preferences. These offers may include benefits such as room upgrades, enhanced amenities and discounts for exceptional restaurants or popular sightseeing tours. Guests will also benefit from personalized recommendations for future vacation destinations. Hoteliers can use booking, shopping, and historical experience patterns to derive contextual and relevant pre-trip and in-trip recommendations tailored to each individual guest.
AI-infused virtual assistants engage with customers in multiple languages, using natural language processing technology to detect user intent, anticipate needs, and extract historical patterns to generate more relevant and personalized responses. NLP technology utilizes an embedded recommendation engine to provide personalized offers based on the customer’s profile, preferences and transaction history.
Hoteliers can align offers with the context of a traveler’s journey, accounting for trip-specific considerations such as weather, the availability of alternate transportation modes and ancillary services like room upgrades. Once a traveler’s journey has begun, hoteliers can provide helpful in-trip communications, such as providing updates about previously unexpected issues including travel delays or event cancelations.
In the travel and hospitality industry, AI-driven virtual assistants are improving efficiency and creating more positive customer experiences. Through active and continuous learning, enhanced assistance capabilities use insights gained to devise new and creative ways to enhance the customer journey. Virtual assistants can manage a wide range of routine tasks including travel logistics and itineraries, booking and reservations, hotel check-in and check-out as well as requests for room service and other amenities.
AI-generated insights into guest preferences can also identify opportunities for hoteliers to improve their planning for and delivery of customer offerings. Using these insights, hotels can determine which current offerings are working, address gaps that may exist, and identify new promotions to launch.
Delight Guests with an Expert Enabled Workforce
AI-infused virtual assistants can also help empower the hospitality workforce to deliver outstanding guest experiences. From the contact center to hotel service personnel – front desk, amenities, maintenance, and housekeeping – all hotel staff have ready access to expert knowledge to help guide them through tasks and engage guests in a more personalized way.
Hoteliers can take guest assistance to new levels by equipping service staff members with detailed, relevant customer insights. This enhanced personalization helps staff solve problems and give suggestions, making guests feel their needs are being served. Workforce-aligned virtual assistants will provide real-time, guest specific engagement prompts and guidance enabling them to service and delight the guest in unexpected and satisfying ways at each hospitality touchpoint. For example, if a particular guest was delighted about a restaurant they dined at or an attraction they visited in the area, hoteliers can use that insight to make informed recommendations about dining options and local activities on future trips.
Along with the emergence of virtual concierges, in-room devices and robotic assistance will further revolutionize the hotel guest experience of the future. These enhancements will enable a more fully immersive customer journey across all travel touchpoints. AI-enabled functionality within virtual concierges can be leveraged in physical tools, making in-room interactions with devices even smarter.
Smart devices for hospitality are already appearing conceptionally in several hotels and markets that include one of the world’s most service-oriented destinations: Las Vegas. As an example, voice-activated devices powered by Amazon Alexa or Google Home that allow a guest to request room service or extra towels, or smart thermostats that guests can control from their smartphone, or even a smart, interactive mirror that can display local weather or news.
Operational Insights and New Business Models
As AI-enabled virtual assistants become more pervasive, hoteliers can gain deeper insights about possible friction points. These insights can be analyzed to identify opportunities to streamline processes and conduct a more detailed measurement of how services are being delivered and ways to improve. As an example, if guests are consistently asking the same questions—“How do I get to the pool?” or “What services does your spa offer?”—hotels can use those insights to improve signage or enable front desk staff to more easily direct guests. Hotel operators can also use these insights to further automate parts of the guest experience like contactless check-in or making it easier for guests to extend their stay digitally, which frees up staff from having to handle the same inquiries repeatedly.
AI has the potential to create fully cohesive and personalized travel journeys across all modes of transportation. This means that guests will come to expect their hotel stay to be just as user-friendly as other parts of their trip. Service providers are increasingly forming more partnerships to create comprehensive AI-enabled solutions for hospitality customers to optimize pricing and drive enhanced resource allocation, marketing and crisis management.
Virtual Assistants of the Future
The effective application of conversational AI and virtual assistants opens a new world of opportunities for hoteliers creating extraordinary customer experiences, reducing labor costs, improving operational efficiency, and enabling new revenue opportunities and business models.
The hospitality industry is just scratching the surface of this transformative capability.
Anthony Karakkal is chief business officer for travel, transport, hospitality, logistics and real estate markets at LTIMindtree.
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