How You Can Leverage the Power of AI and ChatGPT at Your Hotel
It’s everywhere – on the news, social media, industry publications, you name it.
You simply can’t escape the ongoing talk about AI and ChatGPT.
And there’s a good reason for it. Both solutions are game changers. And they’ve already begun to transform many areas of the hotel and travel industry -from guest communication to marketing and revenue management.
Here, we’ll look more closely at the impact of AI and ChatGPT on the hospitality industry and how you can benefit from this innovative technology.
What is AI?
Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, is when a computer simulates human-like thinking processes. It uses algorithms to allow machines to do work that would usually require human intelligence. Among other things, this includes learning from data, problem-solving and data-driven decision-making.
AI also involves machine learning in many cases. That means the system learns from its own results as well as human input and corrections. As a result, its output improves over time, and it can adapt to changing circumstances.
The most common AI applications in hospitality today include revenue optimization tools and guest communication platforms.
But many more solutions are in development now, especially since the release of ChatGPT.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an AI-language model created by OpenAI. It can process and generate natural language in a very similar way to humans. That’s why you can engage with it via text-based conversations. Ask questions or give prompts and ChatGPT provides the requested information.
Given its AI backbone, ChatGPT can adapt to new information and learn from interactions with humans. This way its output will keep getting better and more refined.
Keep in mind though that ChatGPT relies heavily on the information it’s trained on. That means its answers are only as good as the data it has access to.
How to make the most of AI and ChatGPT at your hotel right now
While AI and natural language models like ChatGPT are still in their early stages, it’s already worth exploring the benefits they offer…
1. Deeper data analysis
Even without AI, business intelligence (BI) tools have brought huge advancements to revenue management. They automate data collection to offer you immediate access to accurate live internal, market and competitor information. This leaves you with more time to optimize pricing strategies, update rates and seize revenue opportunities.
AI takes it to the next level because it also handles data analysis and offers direct suggestions for rate updates or group quotes. Atomize is a good example. Its algorithm has been using live data and AI to analyze demand trends and understand market behavior from the beginning. These deep insights allow the RMS to make optimal rate recommendations and highlight interesting developments.
Add a ChatGPT integration and it will be even easier for you to drill down on certain areas. It will allow you to use natural language queries to ask for specific data sets or comparisons, e.g. the performance of your suites vs. standard rooms over New Year’s Eve this year vs. last year.
2. Smart rate updates
Today’s leading RMSs go another step further and offer full autopilot. That means letting your AI-powered RMS set rates for you automatically. Of course, the system follows your pre-set pricing guidelines to ensure rates and restrictions remain brand-conform.
Using autopilot makes your response time even faster – a critical advantage in today’s highly competitive markets with unpredictable demand shifts. And since it runs 24/7, you seize revenue opportunities and boost your topline even while you sleep, or your revenue manager is off.
The system also learns from its own results and your input. This helps it to perfectly tailor its suggestions to your property and business goals over time.
Again, the Atomize RMS is a good example of this tech in action. It leverages AI not only to set optimized rates but also to recommend ideal restrictions and provide accurate demand projections. This well-rounded approach boosts your revenue and leaves you more time to focus on the bigger picture.
AI has been one of the key technologies driving the price optimization engine at Atomize for a long time and one of the key building blocks when recommending price changes. Our AI is fed data from many different sources, including the hotel but also competitor data, and is constantly improving based on this and other enhancements.ChatGPT has put the spotlight on AI, but even before that key AI concepts have been used (machine learning, neural networks). We are looking at how to utilize ChatGPT and the areas it has improved in future versions of Atomize, and we are always working on improving the AI engine where possible. Fredrik Hultkrantz, Chief Technology Officer at Atomize
3. Accurate forecasting
Forecasting is a big challenge, especially now that demand patterns are less predictable. Nonetheless, it’s critical for optimized pricing and smooth operations.
Business and market intelligence tools as well as RMS offer access to the data you need to create a good forecast. Still, doing it manually is time-consuming and it relies a lot on gut feeling and estimations.
AI-powered systems can speed things up. They analyze past results, current and forward-looking data to give you a base to work from. All that’s left for you to do is fine-tuning the forecast where you see fit. That leaves you with a faster, easier and more precise forecasting process.
4. Targeted marketing campaigns
It’s not just your revenue team that can benefit from AI-powered systems. Your marketing department can also leverage it to increase direct business and boost bookings during slow periods.
AI-powered systems can pull market and demand data from your business intelligence tool to help answer questions like:
- Which dates have slow pick-up and could use a boost?
- Which source markets look especially promising right now?
- Which market segments usually show high demand at this time of year?
Apart from providing the data, an AI tool can even offer concrete suggestions for targeted campaigns. Again, your team only needs to fine-tune it and ensure it goes with your branding.
In the next step, ChatGPT can help you quickly draft the necessary marketing content, e.g. emails, ads and landing pages. Put it all together and you’re ready to launch your campaign in no time.
5. Immediate customer support
If your reservations team is tired of answering the same questions multiple times a day, automate part of your guest communication. A ChatGPT-powered chatbot is the most advanced and complete option. It can run 24/7 in multiple languages and respond almost like a human would.
That’s great for guests with urgent questions and people who don’t enjoy chatbot interactions that feel like talking to a machine. It also unburdens your team from responding to FAQs repeatedly.
Ideally, your chatbot sits directly on your website, so guests can access it via their desktop or their smartphone. That way they get the answers they need immediately. This creates a smoother reservation experience and helps you capture more booking intent.
There’s one major limitation though. ChatGPT doesn’t have empathy or emotional intelligence (yet). That makes it perfect for FAQs or simple requests (e.g. a high-floor room or extra towels). But don’t rely on it to handle complaints or more complex guest queries.
Leave those to your team! Their human touch will ensure the best customer experience and effective service recovery if something went wrong.
6. Highly personalized service
Guests today expect more personalization than ever. According to a study by Deloitte, 65% of guests expect hotels to remember their preferences from past stays. If you can do that, your property will stand out from the competition.
Laura Calin, VP of Strategy and Solutions Management at Oracle Hospitality, suggests how to go about it: Hoteliers that successfully integrate and leverage their data through AI will be best positioned to provide accurate, relevant recommendations, resulting in unparalleled guest experiences.
In practice, this means letting a smart guest communication system pull guest data from your PMS to understand their preferences. Next, it can target guests with highly specific promotions, services or add-on recommendations that match their interests and travel style. Sending tailored offers rather than generic ones will increase your conversion rates and drive ancillary revenue and upsell income.
Oaky, the upselling software for hotels, is a great example of leveraging the possibilities of AI and ChatGPT;
At Oaky, we’re actively harnessing the potential of AI, including innovations like ChatGPT, to reimagine how hotels engage with guests. With the power of AI and ChatGPT, we transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Our upcoming solution aims to automate the creation of compelling descriptions and translations for deals and room upgrades, promising a more efficient way for hotels to communicate their offerings globally.By infusing AI into Oaky, we’re on the brink of revolutionising guest experiences, personalising recommendations, and transforming how hotels and guests interact in a tech-savvy world. Wouter Wisselink, Head of Product at Oaky
7. Improved employee satisfaction
The less time your team spends on boring manual tasks, the more time they have for meaningful work.
Here Adam Mogelonsky, Partner at Hotel Mogel Consulting Ltd. sees AI’s massive potential: Where AI will help immensely is in process automation to thereby activate new layers of service customization and personalization. This is all the stuff that guests want immediate answers for or that business workers don’t deem as fulfilling or creative work.
That’s true for all departments. With AI-powered systems, your revenue manager won’t be bogged down with collecting data and collating Excel reports anymore. The reservation and front desk staff can skip answering FAQs and spend more time genuinely engaging and connecting with guests. Finally, marketing will spend less time researching demand and target markets and have more time for creative promotions and ads. All this increases morale and employee satisfaction because people can finally concentrate on the engaging, creative part of their work.
Now you have an overview of what AI and ChatGPT can do for your hotel. Given this technology’s versatility, it will bring countless benefits, from increased efficiency and more engaged staff to better guest experiences and higher revenue.
Not everything will happen overnight though. Listening to the hype around these innovative solutions, it may sound like the hospitality industry will change completely in the next few months.
Don’t worry, it’s not quite as drastic. But this technology is here to stay, and it will bring change.
The earlier you familiarize yourself with it, the better you can adapt and benefit from it. So explore your options now to get (and stay) ahead of your competition!
Want to know how much extra revenue you can expect from using an AI-powered RMS? Reach out to the Atomize team now to find out!
About Atomize RMS
Atomize represents a cutting-edge hotel revenue management software, offering a sophisticated, AI-driven solution for dynamic pricing for hotels. Atomize leverages real-time market data, competition analysis, and demand forecasting to optimize pricing, thereby significantly enhancing revenue and operational efficiency.
Atomize's cloud-based RMS platform is particularly noted for its capability to automate complex decision-making processes, providing hoteliers with a powerful tool to stay ahead in a highly competitive and rapidly evolving market.
Atomize is a Swedish company with its headquarters in Gothenburg and operates on a global market, the software is used in over 50 countries, on 5 continents, by hotels ranging in size from 50 to 1250 rooms.
Focused on innovation and data-driven decisions, Atomize RMS is shaping the future of revenue management.
To learn more about Atomize, visit atomize.com or follow us at @Atomize.
Alexandra Fjällman
Chief Marketing Officer
Atomize AB
