Think about the last few times you checked into a hotel. Did you ask for a room away from the lift? Extra water? A firmer pillow? An early breakfast because you had a morning flight? Perhaps you requested the same thing on your previous stay too. Now imagine checking in and not having to ask again. As hotels use more artificial intelligence and guest data, remembering these little preferences could become a much bigger part of your stay. The interesting bit is not necessarily a robot delivering towels or a chatbot answering questions at midnight. It is something far less dramatic. Your hotel could simply get better at remembering you.
According to Akarsh Mathur, Vice President, Hospitality, The Deltin, Daman, “Digital innovation and artificial intelligence are becoming an important part of how travellers find, plan and experience holidays. Personalised recommendations and simpler bookings are already familiar to most travellers. Behind the scenes, though, technology can also help hotels understand guest preferences, anticipate requests and make stays feel more personal.”
Your hotel could start remembering the small stuff
Hotels already collect information through bookings, loyalty programmes, dining reservations and previous stays. Used thoughtfully, AI can help make sense of those details. Say you regularly request a quiet room. You usually book a table for dinner around 8 pm. You have asked for an extra pillow during your previous two stays. These may sound like tiny details, but remembering them can save guests from repeating the same requests every single time they arrive.
“For an industry where every guest looks for something different, this could make a meaningful difference,” says Mathur. And that last bit matters. The business traveller arriving at 10 pm probably has very different priorities from the family checking in for a three-day holiday. One wants dinner quickly and perhaps an ironing board before an early meeting. The other may need adjoining rooms, restaurant recommendations and something to keep the children occupied.
AI can help hotels spot those differences rather than treating every booking exactly the same.
But knowing your habits is not the same as knowing you
There is another side to all this personalisation. A hotel knowing that you usually order black coffee is useful. A member of staff noticing that you are rushing out for an early flight and asking if you would like that coffee packed to go feels very different. That is the line hospitality still has to get right.
Mathur believes technology cannot replace the human element of a hotel stay. Travellers may use technology to plan holidays and manage parts of their stay, but what tends to stay with them is the welcome, the service and their experience at the destination. And perhaps that is where AI becomes most useful in hotels.
If technology can handle repetitive requests, routine information and some of the administrative work happening behind the scenes, hotel teams potentially have more time to pay attention to the people actually staying there.
Because nobody comes home raving about how efficiently their preference data was processed.
They do remember the breakfast packed before an early flight, the room change sorted without fuss or the staff member who remembered their coffee order the next morning.
Hotels may be getting much better at learning our habits. Turning that information into genuinely good hospitality is still very much a human job.
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