Hospitality’s getting more personal. Leading global hotel and serviced apartment players are leveraging AI and other technologies to offer what is being called ultra-personalized hospitality. Will hotels read your mind? Picture something like a concierge who knows just what you need and prefer, right from the time you book or check-in to the time you check out. Think of never filling up any guest profiles or other generic forms anymore, with automatic bookings for your chosen experiences during your stay. Now consider recommendations coming up during the stay that are based EXACTLY on what you love.
Sounds fascinating right? That’s where the future of ultra-personalized hospitality needs a closer examination. Will hotels ultimately read your mind? Let’s delve deeper into some of these aspects below.
What the Future of Ultra-Personalized Hospitality Could Look Like
How will ultra-personalized hospitality stack up for you in the future? Let’s look at a few possibilities (note-many of them are already on their way toward becoming a global reality).
- Smart adaptive virtual assistants will keep learning your habits and navigate uncountable options before streamlining all communication between you, the agent, and the hotel/serviced apartment.
- There will be something on the lines of predictive services and anticipatory hospitality for you. For example, picture AI systems that will analyze your previous stays, social media presence, and possibly even biometric data at some point. They will predict your mood and preferences, adjusting lighting, entertainment, and room temperature for a more comfortable stay!
- AI-driven butlers will suggest various activities, make bookings, and handle your requests based on present needs and inferred choices/interests.
- Emotionally intelligent AI systems will detect changes in your behavior and respond with suitable environmental adjustments or support.
- Biometric scanning could also be a thing, helping configure your stay, setting sleep preferences, wellness goals, and dietary needs depending on real-time analysis or stored data.
- Some properties may look at enticing you with neuro-sensory sleep pods based on biofeedback. They will analyze your sleep patterns and optimize air pressure, sound, and light to optimize the quality of your sleep. Now that one’s a winner right?
- The same holds true for adaptive circadian light panels that read your internal clock to match the destination time zone and lower jet lag!
- Smart room automation will go mainstream with voice assistants for controlling temperature, entertainment, lighting, etc. Automated room settings will pre-set preferences or adapt to your behavior throughout the stay. Connected smart devices will also enable more personalized experiences.
What Else Could Be On the Cards?
Hotels and serviced apartment brands may leverage smart technologies to unlock capabilities that go beyond simple personalization. For instance, there may be higher emphasis on more sustainable and eco-friendly options. Smart sensors and other tools will help guests assess these attributes and ensure stays that are in sync with their lifestyle preferences. TheSqua.re is already doing it with EcoGrade and it could be a benchmark in terms of global sustainability for the hospitality industry.
Gathering and analyzing guest data to understand preferences and past behavior before predicting future needs will also be par for the course. Machine learning algorithms will also help evaluate vast data sets and identify patterns and forecast guest preferences with higher accuracy. In fact, recommendations, welcome gifts, and customized offerings will pop up just when you think you want it! This will be possible through hyper-personalized and data-based predictive analytics that will feed marketing campaigns. In fact, there could be a time when your AI assistant or concierge will communicate with the property before your arrival, arrange the pre-welcome offerings, and secure spa or other booking timeslots without you having to do anything! From letting you know about a table that’s available at your favorite eatery or showing you a local activity that you love, they will work solely for you above all else. Imagine the same assistant also suggesting handpicked stays like serviced apartments in Paris or even short-stay serviced apartments in Amsterdam, ensuring your next trip is customized to the last detail.
Prepare for the Future of Hospitality
If you’re a frequent traveler, you’ll notice several baby steps (and some big ones) being taken by hotel and serviced apartment brands across the world already. Some form of personalization is already a big part of the global travel experience, and it’s only going to expand in the future! Suppose you’re a loyalty program member who always wants high-floor rooms with views. In this case, technology could possibly notice the pattern and offer more such rooms in the property during booking.
It will also communicate your dietary needs, remember any extra add-ons, and flag special occasions to the hotel/apartment staff. There will also be changing updates in times of rapidly evolving situations, i.e. delayed check-ins, late flights, booking shifts, etc. In fact, there’s going to be a big shift in how loyalty programs function, based on these innovations. So, there’s no better time to be a guest than the future! It’s going to be faster than you think- hotels will not be able to read your mind, but they’ll certainly get as close as they can! And whether it’s a corporate trip or a leisure escape, you might soon find yourself booking serviced apartments in Barcelona or similar stays worldwide, each one tailored precisely to your preferences.
