This year saw the first round of our new event series, Hospitality Horizons. Its mission is to bring together hospitality consultants and technology partners, to forge connections, discuss the latest industry trends, and generally have a great time. 

And what a great time it was. Our partner network is a rich source of knowledge and expertise, and it was amazing to see so many experts sharing insights and inspiration from their specific fields and regions. 

The series saw us travel to six locations – London, Stockholm, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam and Barcelona – and visit some amazing venues, from meeting rooms to ice bars to the open sea. Hospitality Horizons will return again next year in more locations around the world, but until then, here are some of this year’s highlights, including talking points, projected industry trends and thoughts from some of the attendees. 

Table of contents

What AI in hospitality really looks like 

There was plenty of keen discussion around the use of AI. We debunked the myth that AI in hospitality means robots and less human interaction; instead, it will help us shift our focus from human-powered to human-centric. 

This will primarily happen in three ways: first, AI parsing will provide immediate and personalized information about guests, processing all sorts of customer data to provide a short, actionable summary for staff. Second, it will improve services to delight guests even more. And third, it will automate countless manual tasks so that hotel teams have much more time to actively focus on guests rather than tick off an administrative checklist.

Truly know your guests 

What are the values of the modern guest? They seek authentic experiences and want to feel a part of a community. They prefer contactless, sustainable travel and often blend trips between work and leisure. These attributes are valuable to think about when it comes to the guest experience, but they are still broad brushstrokes. 

AI can help connect more informative data from disparate sources. For example, a London hotel may send a marketing email to a past guest in order to get them to return. But they won’t know the best time to send that email. However, a flight aggregator like Skyscanner knows that this person has fare alerts set up for London in December. If a hotel can access this information, they can hyper-segment their comms to maximize the chances of rebooking. The ‘segment of one’ is something that could arrive sooner than people expect. 

Improve offerings 

AI also has a role to play in improving the services and experiences that hoteliers offer to guests – and how they offer them. Research shows that a third of Millennials, Gen Zs and Gen Xs want to use AI tools to create travel itineraries and give personal recommendations. This is something Mews is actively developing following our acquisition of Nomi last year. 

Upselling is another key area where AI can make a difference. Hoteliers will be able to use smart, connected data to run bespoke searches like ‘show me our most loyal customers’ and ‘who is most likely to upgrade their room’. This – especially coupled with seamless upselling throughout the stay, or dynamic pricing across multiple space types like parking and co-working desks – can have a big impact on a hotel’s bottom line. 

Empower staff 

Hoteliers around the world continue to struggle with staff recruitment. In a survey of Mews customers, 70% told us they have challenges hiring new team members, with front office and housekeeping the hardest roles to fill. There are plenty of economic and socioeconomic reasons for this, but part of the problem is that staff are often left feeling unmotivated, unchallenged and unfulfilled with the repetitive nature of their tasks. 

That’s why staff empowerment can have such a huge impact on engagement and turnover. Automation and AI can be harnessed to release teams from the drudgery of administration, freeing them to spend more time being human with guests and showing their real worth. 

For instance, a powerful search tool within the PMS can save huge amounts of time and allow staff to better personalize guest experiences. Imagine being able to type or speak a question into your PMS, just as you’d ask it to a colleague. ‘Which guests are due to arrive in the next hour?’ ‘Who is the highest value guest, and can I offer them a free upgrade tonight?’ ‘What are the most popular upsells among guests and when are the best times to offer them?’ 

There’s a great quote from Jason Birnbaum, Chief Information Officer for United Airlines, that neatly sums up the importance and benefits of staff empowerment. “We must help our people – our frontline employees, our customer-service agents, our dispatchers – to make more decisions faster, hopefully eliminating the need to make the most mundane decisions, so they can reserve their expertise for solving really complicated problems.”

An exciting future 

This snapshot of our Hospitality Horizons event only gives a flavor of the excitement and amazing conversations from the in-person events. We plan to return again next year for another series, but until then there’s plenty to keep you busy. 

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Anne-Laure Charmensat