AI Insights: Generative AI to drive personalization in hotels

The Hotels Network (THN) provides hotels with technology to help boost direct sales by personalizing the experience for their website users. 

As part of our ongoing series on how travel brands are using generative artificial intelligence solutions from companies including OpenAI, Google and more, Juanjo Rodriguez, CEO of THN, shared his thoughts on the technology and its impact on the travel industry.

We began working with generative AI in … January 2023. During our annual “Speed Week,” we rolled out our first-ever hackathon. Teams across different departments joined forces to brainstorm AI-powered solutions for our client hotels, experimenting with algorithms like audio-to-text conversion. Within just two weeks post-hackathon, we had our first idea up and running, which is a testament to how quickly we can bring innovative solutions to market.

Our current work with generative AI is focused on … streamlining content creation on our personalization platform. With our AI assistant, we’re simplifying the task of crafting personalized website messages for hoteliers. It saves time for hoteliers by offering customized options based on the tones and objectives that they specify and also adapts to different languages. We want hoteliers to be able to engage with their target audiences, boost their brand visibility and ultimately have happier guests. We’re always exploring ways to leverage generative AI to simplify direct channel strategies for our client hotels.

The biggest challenge for us related to generative AI is … combining the technology with human supervision, successfully and at scale. Generative AI is constantly improving, and it’s our responsibility to keep up and ensure that our tools are adapting to perform at the highest level. We’ve found the perfect balance between scalability and personalization by using advanced AI to work with vast amounts of data in real-time, which is what makes it possible for us to meet each visitor’s unique needs. Human supervision adds that extra touch, ensuring content not only meets our standards but also aligns perfectly with each hotel’s brand voice.

For the travel industry overall, we see the most potential for generative AI to … make every part of the travel experience feel tailor-made, from start to finish. THN got its start when we recognized that each hotel guest is unique, so their website experience should reflect that. Personalization is our key to offering tailored experiences to online visitors. The potential of generative AI is exciting for us because it boosts both the quantity and quality of what we can achieve in helping hoteliers create personalized user journeys.

One year from now we expect to be using generative AI for … something that has not been imagined yet. We’ve already witnessed AI technologies evolving to anticipate and fulfill our needs before we voice them, and this is a trend we expect to see integrated even more into our daily tools and platforms. These AI systems are set to navigate vast datasets, deliver more personalized experiences, preemptively address issues and optimize our interactions in both digital and physical worlds.