The crew at Cogwheel (Stephanie Smith, Mike Wylie and Mohammed Razib) attended the Vacation spot AI Convention for Hoteliers in Washington DC on September 30, 2025.
There’s a variety of “AI slop” and each vendor is AI-first, AI-enabled or AI-augmented. This convention, in solely its 2nd 12 months, was an opportunity to take a pulse on the trade stance on AI and separate hype from actuality.
Whereas I’d have wished individuals would have geeked out extra on MCPs and variations in every LLM and their completely different outputs, there have been nonetheless a variety of stable take-aways.
What Hospitality Issues are We Fixing?
73% of executives consider AI could have a major or transformative influence on our trade, whereas 41% assume AI is 2+ years away. I consider we will harness it now and make incremental impacts.
Ads
However we have to cease in search of a magic bullet in AI and look to layer in AI to unravel smaller issues persistently. Deal with fixing actual enterprise issues, not chasing the following shiny software.
The highest influence areas are constant throughout each panel fall into considered one of these buckets:
- Visitor engagement – Assembly vacationers the place they’re, enhancing experiences
- Income progress – Packaging, merchandising, buyer journey mapping
- Operational effectivity – Chopping prices and automating the “chaos” in back-of-house and entrance desk.
There was settlement that GIGO (Rubbish In, Rubbish Out) is forcing us to each consolidate fragmented knowledge and processes whereas additionally adhere to a middleware or spine that AI infrastructure can simply be tailored.
Reviewing AI Myths
We’re all nonetheless studying about AI, the right way to harness, prepare and execute.
- There was a current MIT examine that indicated that 95% of organizations studied get zero return on their AI funding. The panel mentioned the examine outlined success incorrectly; and that AI needed to be scalable throughout the enterprise, which isn’t reasonable.
- Usually, hospitality is behind in expertise. However, shopper adoption of AI by way of journey planning is definitely forward of retail by 500%. As an trade, we have to embrace tendencies set by the buyer and observe their lead.
- AI goes to exchange people. It was mentioned time and again: AI gained’t exchange you, however the individual utilizing AI will.
The Individuals Facet of Hospitality
AI is shifting quicker than most of us can course of, however the winners can be those that bridge human interplay (HI) + AI.
“Cease throwing instruments at workers; make expertise invisible.”
There was a variety of dialogue about bringing your individuals alongside the expertise journey. You possibly can’t simply drop a software of their lap and hope they use it.
As an trade, we have to upskill our workforce (a standard theme) and use individuals extra successfully to leverage expertise.To have an AI-first tradition, you want BOTH a prime down strategy AND a backside up strategy to have interaction the whole crew. Then have fun the small wins.
Agent-to-Agent: The Subsequent Battleground
It’s not simply B2B and B2C anymore; we now have to contemplate A2A (Agent-to-Agent) commerce. In a world the place AI brokers are making bookings, how do manufacturers differentiate themselves — to machines, not people? The issues:
- Be machine-visible – Construction content material semantically so AI can “see” and rank you.
- Map intents – AI brokers ebook based mostly on intents (household journey, enterprise in a single day, weekend spa). Are you ready to bundle and serve affords this fashion?
- Make proof moveable – Machines (and savvy vacationers) worth verifiable claims. Assume critiques and validated knowledge, not simply advertising and marketing copy.
Agent-to-Agent (A2A) commerce means Expedia’s AI agent may ebook instantly with Hilton’s AI agent. Your ARI and content material should be structured to play in that world.
Take a look at the article by Mark Fancourt recapping Agentic AI with a graphic graphic on the longer term infrastructure.
The Impact on Resort Advertising and marketing and the Buyer Journey
For luxurious motels, the objective is the way you make individuals really feel. Can AI take the knowledge from their procuring patterns, CRM, PMS and really perceive every buyer higher to ship epic personalization? Can it immediate the agent at examine in to supply me my favourite wine? Does it give the power to permit the resort to speak with me in my desired language?
We’ve got to make our ARI (Availability Charges Stock) moveable so AI can leverage it, in actual time. By doing so the standard web site + reserving engine + app combo could now not be wanted.
web optimization versus GEO
Whereas the influence to look site visitors is predicted to shift, lower than 1% of site visitors from LLMs makes it to resort web sites at the moment.
As an company, we’ve got been speaking about incorporating GEO into our foundational web optimization technique. This additionally means transitioning from key phrase searches to contextual inquiries and understanding how completely different personas matter within the reserving course of.
The massive disruptor can be when transactions will be accomplished by AI; both by people or brokers. We’ve got a possibility, as an trade, to really steal again market share from the OTAs.
Resort Chains on AI
Listening to from the large manufacturers was fascinating, however no one actually confirmed their playing cards.
- IHG: Experimenting with robotics in China; restricted scale as there are points deploying in the USA
- Wyndham: Fixated on value discount, principally in name facilities and IoT effectivity
- Selection: Incorporating new knowledge factors into present BI knowledge
- Hilton: Needs clear, standardized knowledge to keep away from semantic confusion; the trade wants frequent language and an information dictionary
- Marriott: Obsessive about visitor conversations throughout the total journey
- Hyatt: Targeted on lead scoring and RFP responses whereas balancing latency/velocity with governance/security
The theme? Each model is experimenting, however none have solved the fragmentation puzzle.
What’s Subsequent for Lodges and AI
What’s clear to me is that AI isn’t a software; it’s a tradition shift. You don’t sprinkle AI on prime of damaged methods and count on magic.
Successful with AI in hospitality requires clear, centralized knowledge with frequent semantics and linked methods, an AI-first tradition the place you upskill your groups, encourage small wins, and check always and an alignment of the enterprise issues you wish to remedy.
This isn’t about dashboards or attribution fashions anymore. It’s about making a visitor journey that feels private, environment friendly, and trusted.
