Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming travel, tourism and hospitality by streamlining operations, personalising guest experiences and creating new revenue opportunities. From AI-powered booking assistants to smarter distribution systems, the technology is reshaping how businesses serve travellers. However, successful adoption requires reliable data, seamless integration and a balance between automation and human interaction.
Voyager’s World speaks to Prashant Menon, Director Business Development, HyperGuest, in an exclusive interview about AI’s evolving role, its practical applications and the opportunities and challenges shaping the industry’s future.
How is AI transforming the travel, tourism and hospitality industries?
AI is shifting from answering questions to getting things done, and for most hotels, WhatsApp is the easiest place to start. The early numbers are encouraging. According to HiJiffy’s case studies, Paradise Resort on Australia’s Gold Coast now takes 12% of its direct bookings through its chatbot, with an 82% WhatsApp open rate. GHT Hotels in Spain credited its website chatbot with €733,000 in direct booking revenue in 2024.
The next step is an agent that checks live availability, explains the options, sends a payment link and confirms the booking, even at 2 a.m. The hotels that get there first will quietly collect the bookings everyone else misses overnight. But an agent can’t sell what it can’t confirm. In my years in hotel distribution, mismatched room descriptions, occupancy rules and stale rates have always caused friction. AI makes them impossible to ignore. That’s why direct, real-time connectivity, the space we work in at HyperGuest, matters so much.
How can AI help businesses deliver more personalised experiences and improve customer satisfaction across travel and hospitality?
Good personalisation makes a stay easier, not just more expensive. With the guest’s permission, an assistant can use their booking details and preferences to arrange an early arrival, remember a room type or reply in their own language. An upgrade works when it solves a real need, and it can pay off too. Kabannas in the UK paired HiJiffy’s AI messaging with Oaky’s upselling platform and recorded 125 upsell sales in May 2024 through automated webchat and WhatsApp campaigns.
Connected agents can go further. “Please send towels and arrange an airport transfer” becomes assigned tasks, a confirmed price and progress updates. That only works when the agent is linked to the hotel’s operational systems. Service recovery matters just as much. If a guest reports a faulty air conditioner, an agent can alert the duty manager and find an alternative room. But a person should own the apology. Guests don’t notice personalisation. They notice that the hotel remembered and followed through.
In what ways can AI help businesses improve operational efficiency, manage costs and make better decisions?
Some of AI’s most significant benefits lie in routine tasks that consume staff time and gradually erode margins. In housekeeping, AI can help prioritise room cleaning based on arrivals, departures and guest requests, while flagging rooms that may not be ready in time for check-in. In group sales, it can extract requirements from enquiries and prepare proposals using live inventory and approved pricing. Revenue teams can use AI to identify weak booking trends and recommend rate adjustments for human review, while distribution teams can detect inconsistencies in room descriptions and occupancy limits across sales channels. In accounts, AI can match reservations, invoices and payments, highlighting discrepancies that require attention.
There is already evidence of these efficiencies. HiJiffy’s case study for Entourage sur-le-Lac in Canada reports 94% enquiry automation and an estimated 440 staff hours saved. Hilton’s 2023 Green Breakfast pilot also reduced breakfast food waste by 62% across 13 hotels in the UAE, combining AI-based measurement with staff coaching and operational improvements. The larger lesson is that AI delivers value when it improves an actual workflow. Hotels should measure the hours saved, errors prevented and additional revenue generated, rather than focusing solely on the number of conversations handled by an AI assistant.
As AI becomes more widely used, how can the industry balance technology-driven services with the human touch that is essential to hospitality?
The goal should be to let AI handle routine tasks so that people have more time to focus on what matters most: the guest. Kabannas reported automating 92% of guest queries, allowing its team to devote more time to guests who valued personal interaction. This is the right way to approach AI adoption. Technology creates additional capacity, while people determine how best to use it.
Routine tasks such as booking confirmations, standard enquiries and status updates can be automated efficiently. However, sensitive situations involving complaints, compensation or unusual requests should retain human oversight. Equally important is ensuring that guests can reach a staff member easily and do not have to repeat their concerns when a conversation is transferred from an AI assistant. An AI agent can identify a complaint, alert the relevant team and initiate the response process. The duty manager, however, should remain responsible for the apology and the resolution. Hospitality ultimately comes down to how people feel they have been treated. The most effective use of AI is to give employees the time, information and resources they need to deliver thoughtful, consistent service.
What are the key challenges in adopting AI, and how do you see it shaping the future of travel, tourism and hospitality over the next five years?
The challenges are as much operational as technical. Fragmented data makes answers unreliable. Disconnected systems stop agents from finishing tasks. Guest privacy needs clear rules on what’s collected, who sees it and how long it’s kept. Independent hotels also need tools they can afford and manage themselves. And as agents start to act, hotels must decide what an agent can approve on its own, what needs a human’s sign-off and who steps in when something goes wrong.
My advice is to start with one measurable workflow. After-hours enquiries on WhatsApp are a sensible first step. Track accuracy, booking conversion, staff time saved and guest satisfaction before moving on to pre-arrival or revenue tasks. Over the next five years, more AI assistants will search, compare and book for travellers. Hotels with accurate, well-structured content and reliable booking connectivity will be in the conversation. Those without may simply not be shown.
The time to get ready is now, while it’s still a head start rather than a catch-up.