Hotel chatbots have emerged as a powerful tool, helping hotel owners and managers meet growing demand for personalized services and seamless communication. The global chatbot market projected to reach $1.25 billion by 2025, and the hospitality industry is a key driver of chatbot adoption. Chatbots are no longer just a trend; they are an essential component of modern hotel management.
Moreover, guests show considerable interest in staying at hotels that offer chatbots as an additional support and service channel. According to Statista, almost 80% of travelers worldwide are interested in having an intelligent automated assistant during their stay.
Share of hotel guests interested in a hotel supporting a chatbot or automated messaging
Does your hotel business need a chatbot? What are the benefits? And how can you implement one without breaking the bank? Read on to get all the answers and learn why this technology is a game-changer for hotels of all sizes.
Key functions of hotel chatbots
When you think of chatbots, the first thing that may come to mind is support. You ask a question; the bot gives an answer. True, chatbots can provide support. However, this is just one of the use cases hotels can find for them. It turns out there are many things you can do in a conversational format:
- Manage room bookings. Chatbots in the hotel industry can handle the entire booking process, providing information about availability and confirming reservations. When a chatbot is integrated with a payment gateway, it can even let guests pay for their stays. There is almost no need for a human to be involved in the process, which creates a smooth guest experience.
- Check-in and check-out. A hospitality chatbot can save guests from waiting at the reception counter to get their room keys. A fully contactless check-in procedure via a hotel chatbot can allow guests to get a digital room key and immediately access their room. Similarly, the chatbot can check out guests when they leave the hotel.
- Concierge services. Acting as virtual concierges, chatbots can help guests with room service, local attractions, transport routes, and more. By taking over simple queries, about 80% of which chatbots can now handle independently, bots leave hotel personnel with more time to provide personalized service.
- Guest feedback. Chatbots can gather guest feedback in real time, giving the hotel immediate insights into guest experiences and highlighting areas for improvement. Upon checkout, a chatbot can request that guests fill out a survey about their stay.
- Booking history and preferences. Integrated with a property management system (PMS), a chatbot can access guest histories and identify personal preferences. With this information, the hotel can improve personalization, anticipating requests and creating experiences that make guests feel special.
How hotel chatbots work: Core features and functions
Modern intelligent chatbots in the hospitality industry represent a complex fusion of technologies that create rich conversational experiences. Let’s look at the main features that a hotel chatbot needs to have:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) enable chatbots in hotels to interpret spoken and written language and process guest requests. AI-powered chatbots learn in the process, expanding the scope of queries that they can handle.
- Integration with a hotel PMS and other backend systems provides access to real-time data on room or apartment availability and guest preferences. This integration ensures that chatbots can offer accurate and up-to-date information, which is critical for building trust and maintaining guest satisfaction.
- Automation of routine tasks, such as sending booking confirmations and reminders, check-in and check-out, post-visit surveys, and more, reduces the workload on the hotel personnel and improves guest experience.
- Voice and text support allows guests to interact with the chatbot using different channels, such as voice commands and text messages.
- Multi-language support lets chatbots cater to international travelers. This feature is essential for hotels with an international presence or those targeting a global audience.
- Live chat gives guests the opportunity to connect to a human agent if an issue turns out to be too complex for the chatbot to handle. Even the most intelligent AI-based chatbots sometimes fail to understand the problem and provide a solution.
- Customization enables a hotel to give their chatbot its unique brand style and tone. From color theme to tone of voice, a chatbot must represent the hotel brand, maintaining brand recognition and customer loyalty.
How to develop and implement a chatbot for hotels
Here’s a rough outline of the steps you should take if you want to make a chatbot for hotels:
1. Business analysis
Start your hotel chatbot development by defining your business needs, as they will guide the chatbot’s design and functionality. It’s important to assess current operations and identify areas where a chatbot could add the most value.
- Involve all relevant stakeholders in creating terms of reference (TOR) outlining your goals, technical requirements, and desired outcomes. Clear communication during this step is crucial to align stakeholders’ expectations.
- Prioritize features that will directly impact the guest experience and operational efficiency. Focus on the most critical features first to ensure guest engagement and maximize your return on investment.
2. Solution design
Design your chatbot, ensuring that it supports AI features and can integrate with your hotel’s backend systems.
- Outline advanced AI features for a seamless guest experience. These features should be tailored to your specific needs, ensuring that the chatbot adds real value to your operations.
- Ensure seamless deployment across channels, such as your website, mobile app, or voice bots. Cross-channel functionality is essential for providing consistent guest experiences.
3. Development and configuration
Configure chatbot workflows and conversation paths.
- Outline chatbot responses based on common guest inquiries. This step ensures that the chatbot can effectively handle a wide range of scenarios.
- Integrate chatbots for hotels with existing systems for real-time data access. This integration is key to providing accurate and timely information to guests.
- Personalize the chatbot interface to reflect your hotel branding. A branded interface helps reinforce your hotel’s identity and enhances guest engagement.
4. Testing and Improvement
Test the chatbot’s functionality and user experience (UX) by running the chatbot through real-world scenarios. As with other software solutions, testing is not a one-time activity but an ongoing process.
- Verify correct work of features and services before the official launch.
- Run the chatbot through real-world scenarios with your staff or a test group. This allows you to identify and resolve any issues before they affect actual guests.
- Refine chatbot responses based on feedback. This can greatly enhance the chatbot’s effectiveness.
- Optimize chatbot performance based on testing feedback. Continuous improvement is key to keeping the chatbot relevant and effective over time.
5. Launch and Monitoring
Deploy and launch the chatbot, tracking key metrics like engagement rates and user satisfaction. After launch, update and optimize the chatbot to maintain and enhance its effectiveness and accuracy.
How to improve the effectiveness of hotel chatbots
Even the most advanced hotel chatbots need ongoing optimization to meet evolving guest expectations. Regular updates and maintenance ensure that your chatbot remains a valuable asset.
Here are some strategies to enhance chatbot performance after implementation:
- Ensure continuous learning and AI training
Update the chatbot knowledge base and implement AI feedback loops to ensure continuous learning and improvement based on guest interactions. This ongoing process helps the chatbot stay current with the latest guest expectations and trends.
- Enhance personalization
Use guest data to personalize chatbot responses, offering recommendations based on past interactions and preferences.
- Update the user interface and user experience
Ensure that the chatbot interface is user-friendly, with easy navigation and a natural conversational flow to make interactions feel more engaging and less robotic.
- Optimize for multilingual support
Ensure that your chatbot offers the right selection of languages to communicate with your guests and provides culturally sensitive responses.
- Integrate voice assistants
Connect the chatbot with voice assistants like Alexa or Google Assistant to provide hands-free interactions, making the guest experience more convenient.
Real-world hotel chatbot examples
Hotels across the globe are actively implementing chatbot solutions, adding this convenient guest service channel to their offerings. Here are just a few examples of hotel chatbots and intelligent assistants that can enhance guest experience.
IntelliAssistant by Intellias
IntelliAssistant is an AI-powered digital assistant platform that seamlessly integrates with hotel systems, providing personalized guest services and automating routine tasks. Features include real-time booking management, concierge services, and personalized interactions based on guest preferences. This comprehensive solution demonstrates the potential of chatbots to enhance both guest experiences and operational efficiency.
Edward by Edwardian Hotels London
Edward, the chatbot provided by Edwardian Hotels London, works like a true concierge, proactively inquiring about guests’ needs and collecting feedback. Integrated with hotel systems, Edward handles tasks like booking spa appointments, providing local recommendations, and arranging meetings and events.
Marriott International chatbot
The Marriott International chatbot is available across multiple platforms, including the Marriot Bonvoy mobile app and Facebook Messenger. It assists with room bookings, service requests, and loyalty program inquiries, offering convenience to guests. Availability of this chatbot across multiple platforms ensures that guests can access it wherever they are, making it a convenient tool for both the hotel and its guests.
Benefits of hotel chatbots
For both hotels and their guests, a chatbot brings a number of obvious benefits.
Benefits for hotels:
- Reduced operational costs due to automation of routine tasks
- Improved guest service with round-the-clock support
- Ability to handle unlimited interactions at peak times without sacrificing quality
- Aggregation of valuable data on guest preferences for marketing strategies
- More time for staff to spend on higher-value activities
Benefits for guests:
- Quick, accurate responses without needing to wait for a hotel employee
- Personalized recommendations based on guest preferences and past interactions
- Ability to get support from any device at any time
- Multilingual support eliminating language barriers
- Anticipation of guest needs and proactive support, such as booking confirmations and activity suggestions
Make a chatbot a member of your hotel crew with Intellias
Hotel chatbots are more than just a modern technology craze. When companies decide to build chatbots for hotels, they are choosing to future-proof their operations. Designed and implemented correctly, chatbots can significantly improve hotel experiences for people on both sides of the reception counter, giving them more of the most valuable thing – their time.
Intellias has the expertise to help you navigate the challenges of chatbot implementation. Working together with you from day one, we will help you design, plan, and launch a hotel chatbot that signals your true transformation into a hotel of the future. Let’s talk about what a chatbot can do for you!
