AI technology in the hospitality

AI technology was first introduced and presented at The Dartmouth conference in 1956. At that time, Businesses had not realized yet the importance of AI technology in business and operations due to its lack of versatility and simply under development. Forward to now, the interest in AI has grown uncontrollably and has been applied liberally in various industries, especially the tourism and hospitality industry. How does AI technology fit in the spectrum of hotel tech in reality? Can AI possibly replace humans completely in the hotel sector? Let’s dive into today’s blog and get this sort out with CiHMS.

What is AI technology?

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, which is a huge range of computer science, specializing in researching and building smart machines capable of carrying out tasks that require human intelligence to do so. Therefore, it can learn, memorize and make decisions like a human being. The core element of AI technology is machine learning and big data. A few examples of AI in our daily life that we might not recognize as Siri, Alexa, email spam filters, Netflix’s movies recommendations, etc.

AI technology has been surrounding human beings for the last decades without us acknowledging it.

Why does AI matters?

Since the epidemic outbreaks all over the world, Vietnam has been dealing with ongoing impacts on economics and social well-being. The tourism and hospitality industry has been hit the hardest, struggling to stay afloat. According to statistics on total tourism revenue from 2008 to 2020 according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, the industry obtained roughly 637.00 trillion in 2008 with a growth rate of 17.7%, by 2020 we only reached 312.00 trillion, experience a negative growth rate of – 58.7%, a significant drop. Based on the Institute for Tourism Development Research (ITDR) report, the total revenue for the first 10 months of 2021 was at 138.150 billion VND, a huge decrease of 45.42% over the same period in 2020.

Hotels were shutting down as the result of the social distancing curbs across the country, hardly meeting 20% occupancy compared to the previous period. As a matter of fact, even well-thought-out plans and scarcity marketing policy such as half-price room rate promotions, buy 1 get 1 extra night off for free, etc. didn’t seem to work out. Hoteliers had to come up with budget cuts and excessive laying off to survive through the pandemic. Consequently, the labor shortage has become a major issue for the industry alarmingly. AI technology has become the optimal solution amidst this chaos.

Contributing to relieving the labor shortage crisis, AI technology has helped hotel employees to executive tasks in a much shorter timeframe.

Thanks to AI technology, your front desk shall no longer have to be hesitated among welcoming a long-line of guest check-in, picking up the disturbing phone ringing, determining whether or not to answer the series of questions from the guests standing by, or your colleagues. All the phone calls shall be routed to the relevant departments based on the algorithm of past phone calls. Guests can proceed with online check-in right at the phone and skip the front desk. All housekeeping requests are synchronized across the system. Perspectively, with AI technology as a back-bone, hotels are getting very close to the smart hotel model – the ideal hotel model of the future.

The downside of AI technology

For the last decades, AI technology has rapidly improved with outstanding breakthrough innovations. However, it’s far from perfect as many have believed. With a group of complex algorithms and deep machine learning, AI still has its flaw and is completely unavoidable. On top of that, the financial burden of implementing AI technology in your business operations is critical. To allocate expenses effectively and leverage between an investment with cost in this sensitive is crucial to any hotel business.

Applications of AI in the hospitality

AI technology is mostly found in the smart hotel model such as:

• Robots: giving directions, answering frequently asked questions from the customers, delivery room services, and laundries as necessary. Robots can be used as the janitor to eliminate direct physical contact with hotel employees amidst this COVID-19, ensuring guests feel safe and confident.
• Facial recognition technology at the check-in counter, automatically complete the process, earn access to the restricted areas of the hotel without a card key.
• Order contactless through QRMenu – digital menu, easily adjust, proceed with the payment, and give out feedback right on guests’ mobile devices.

Ordering through a digital menu is now possible with QRMenu, powered by AI technology.

• Forecast room and occupancy rates correctly to come up with appropriate strategic plans to maximize revenue and profits.
• Analyze guests’ data to elevate their experience on future stays.
• And more can be found throughout hotel operations that CiHMS shall go into more details in the later blogs.

In short, AI technology exists in various shapes and forms in the hospitality industry. AI is no longer a trend, it has become a part of the industry operations. This technology has been cleverly integrated into numerous hospitality management solutions on the market, such as CiHMS. Featuring all of the above, the cloud-based hospitality management solution has been solidly trusted by our customers and implemented on over 40+ hotels for less than 1 year of launching. Thanks to its high reliability, safety, and security, CiHMS has delivered exceptional growth for hotels’ revenue and performances. Interested in our solution? Contact our consultants to dig a bit deeper into CiHMS.