How Artificial Intelligence Is Going To Change Hotel Stays

ModiHost is a new platform for hotels that uses artificial intelligence to offer a better hotel management system, centered around personalization of the guest experience. In turn they aim to drive increased spending and brand loyalty. They say they’ve cracked the code that many hotels haven’t, offering a solution for remembering guest preferences and anticipating their needs that most hotels wouldn’t be able to employ on their own.

As the company says it in its whitepaper: “Hotel management is a complex and convoluted industry. It is also a highly inefficient one. The need to operate multiple systems, integrate different booking systems, and process reservations via mediums ranging from email to fax, have made hotel management hopelessly complicated.” Those of us who stay in hotels regularly already have a sense that this is the case, even without much industry knowledge. It is often surprising how little the average hotel gets right in terms of making any given guest feel valued – when in reality, it doesn’t take much to make a big difference.

ModiHost’s goal, as they go on to explain, lies in “creating an advanced AI that can maximize hotel revenue, boost occupancy rates and increase guest satisfaction. It will drive greater efficiencies for hospitality providers, ranging from small motels and boutique hotels to larger chains. This will enable them to compete with the leading hotel giants as well as sharing economy services such as Airbnb.”

Here’s the company’s pitch in an 80-second video.

We talked to Stephan Radwitz, ModiHost CEO, about why he thinks the hotel industry needs a platform like this right now, and what it could mean for the average hotel guest and their experience in the near future.

-How does the platform propose to improve the guest experience and drive return business and loyalty?

SR: We use AI to get acquainted with a guest, learn their habits and automatically offer suitable premium services for them. The platform will remember all previous orders, in-room dining, bookings, concierge requests and all other details of the guest’s stay. The platform analyzes this data and offers appropriate options from the moment the guest checks in.

Just a few examples: if a person is vegetarian, AI makes sure that hotel staff knows about this when a person orders food or books a table at the restaurant. If a guest has an allergy, it will automatically be noted for when the chef is cooking for this guest. The platform can offer snacks if a person is watching a movie. Needless to say, that system gathers information from a person’s previous stays, which helps to upsell the  hotel’s products. When you know a person’s habits – preferred breakfast time, preferred food, favorite juice, favorite coffee, you name it – Modihost can predict the needs of the guest.

– It’s often surprising how little hotels seem able to use technology to anticipate needs and personalize stays these days. Why do you think that is, and how does ModiHost proposes to improve that?SR: The system records all people’s activities and sees patterns in their behavior, then it helps hotel staff to identify a person’s needs. With face recognition tools, it can hint to the hotel staff about a person’s name, how long he stays, and the purpose of his stay. It helps to bring service to another level, no matter how big or small the hotel. Hotels and the companies that manage them have always had access to the latest technology, but “RevPar” (a figure looking at occupancy multiplied by room rate) has increased year after year for the past 8 years in the US, each of the years bringing a new record. I think they felt that success would last forever so there was no need to upgrade to or explore new technologies. Now, as hotels come back from the crisis, they will be looking for anything they can do to cut costs and drive rates, which is where ModiHost comes in. Hotels, chains, management companies, et cetera, will be way more receptive to innovation, because the overall market demand will be smaller for some time.

Colombia, Cartagena, Hotel Caribe, upscale resort lobby. (Photo by Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal  // UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES

 

– How important is it for hotels to get these things right as we move forward? Are we going to be seeing a lot of changes in this area in the future? 

SR: Our team believes that once a guest experiences all the features we are offering, they will be interested in revisiting the place. Imagine hotel staff knowing your name, your habits, your favorite food and drinks. You will be offered the right things at the right times. It is hugely important for hotels, chains, management companies, et cetera to take advantage and implement these new technologies, because more hotels are going to be fighting for a piece of a smaller pie, at least for a while. Hotels can’t control the market, so they will have to control costs. As ModiHost deals with ancillary income to the hotel, it could play a huge role as we come out of the pandemic.