AI will impact the hospitality industry across the full spectrum of business operations.

In the same way that the rise of the technology is impacting all industries, it is also impacting all of the sub-functions of business. From sales to finance, plant & facility.

It is through this breadth of mechanism that the industry will gain value from the capability. Generative AI will arrive on the back of usage or adoption of existing and new technology platforms that serve the various business functions. As has been the case with any of the previous shifts in technology. For example, mobility, ecommerce, big data and cloud to cite a few.

AI seems new to the industry. It isn't. AI, or the technology doing work that would be classed as 'decision support' to use an older term, has been in play for our industry through the various revenue management solutions over the past almost 30 years. It may not be generative in the form of some of the more recent development. Although it will be and in the revenue space this capability will augment existing functionality to improve access, visibilty and analysis of information.

Conversely, the industry has been traditionally wary of adoption of revenue technology, and it follows, AI. Mainly because industry has been reticent to trust technology over their instincts and experience. 

This is a telling phenomena for hospitality. And yet 'ChatGPT' and it's comrades are all the rage.

Who wins and loses?

Everyone wins as the ability to communicate in a more human manner with technology in the leveraging of information will increase the overall value of information and technology generally. I often hear industry colleagues state that they have the information, but they just can't leverage it. These tools will vastly improve capability and access.

The losers will be at the behest of business decision making and not as the result of the technology.

Ultimately the manner of adoption of techology remains a very human decision. If the warnings of decimation that come with this capability are true, then it is the hospitality professionals that make our industry hospitality that stand to lose. It's definitely the current trend in hospitality, and generative AI has yet to really hit it's straps.

If that is to be the path then the real loser will be the hospitality industry. Hospitality is a human experience and when there are no more hospitality professionals left, then we no longer actually have hospitality.

I often refer to this scenario as dormitory management.