Like other travel industry sectors, hotels are evaluating artificial intelligence (AI) as a key investment area.
“We see a lot of investment around the guest engagement. I think really the opportunity is in automation and the moving of tasks—and it’s not necessarily taking away roles from people but enabling existing roles to be more productive, more efficient within their tasks,” James Bishop, VP of ecosystem and strategic partnerships at SiteMinder, said in an interview in the PhocusWire studio at The Phocuswright Conference.
Chris Clayton, head of IT, distribution and digital at Scenic Hotel Group, agreed, adding that it’s crucial to find the best applications for AI.
“You can’t go down to the local Best Buy or the local Harvey Norman and buy ‘AI.com’ on a CD-ROM and plug it in and you’ve got AI, and I think that’s the mistake that some of the senior people around the world—not just our company—are [making],” he said.
“There’s a lot of work we can do around that to look at which part of AI we can implement to maximize the best return on that investment. It’s not a one-size-fits-all, you plug it in and away you go.”
The pair also stressed the importance of the data behind AI.
"It’s all about making sure that the data is in the place and that it is formatted in such a way that it can be used by AI,” Bishop said.
Clayton added, “Data is really important, because poor data leads to bad outcomes.”
The conversation further covered personalization, the role of online travel agencies amid AI and technology implementation cycles.
Listen to the full discussion with PhocusWire’s Abby Crotty below.
Hotel stack readiness for AI