Elevating experiences: Gen AI’s role in next-gen hospitality

In today’s digital landscape, capturing user attention is more competitive than ever, pushing brands to deliver highly relevant content, products, and experiences. Business models have evolved from simply showcasing all available services to intelligently recommending those that best match individual needs. At the core of this transformation are recommendation engines—cutting-edge systems that process vast volumes of user data to construct refined behavioral profiles by capturing individual preferences, tastes, and interests. This gives enterprises, especially in the hospitality industry, the power to elevate user experience by personalizing service offerings and at the same time boosting adoption, engagement, and retentions.

Why the need for personalization and it’s role in hospitality

Traditionally, recommendation engines relied on collaborative filtering or content-based algorithms that are effective, but often one-dimensional. These conventional and static models with pre-defined user segments prevented recommendation engines from adapting to individual nuances in real time. They often produce generic recommendations that fail to resonate on a personal level. Now, the emergence of hyper-personalization through Generative AI (Gen AI) is redefining the game, transforming journeys and experiences for end users across industries. Instead of treating users as part of a broad cohort, Gen AI can understand and respond to users as unique individuals and customize the offerings that are highly personalized for every individual customer.

In today’s experience-driven services, personalization is no longer a luxury, it’s an expectation. This means that the hospitality and travel industry must also deliver a tailored & personalized guest experience. This has become the key to customer loyalty and brand differentiation. Now, with the advent of Gen AI, we’re entering a new era: hyper-personalization of individual services.

Generative AI in the hospitality industry

From custom room preferences to dynamic travel recommendations, Gen AI is helping brands move beyond basic personalization to create truly individualized guest journeys in real time and at every touchpoint.

Let’s check the exciting examples of how generative AI is transforming hospitality services:

1.    Personalized stay recommendations

Hotels can use AI recommendations to create highly customized guest experiences from the moment they book a stay until they check out.

1.  Dynamic deals: With information about market trends, demand fluctuations, and user profiles, Gen AI can assist in providing value-for-money offers and exclusive deals dynamically, for booking stays, or planning a completely budget friendly package for their tour.
2. Smart room customization: Gen AI can analyze guest preferences like room choices, bed size, or the usage of room amenities, to suggest room types with certain pre-set aspects before a guest’s arrival. For example, if a guest usually prefers a specific type of mattress, bed sizes, or enjoys specific views, generative AI can automatically recommend these preferences to provide best stay experience.
3. In-house activities recommendations: By analyzing guest’s past stay experiences, Gen AI can help concierge services recommend appropriate in-house activities, spa and dine-out options, etc.
4. Tourism and local activities: To ensure that guests enjoy a holistic stay, Gen AI can suggest local attractions or experiences like sightseeing tours, adventure activities, or cultural walks based on their travel preferences, weather conditions, or specific interests in art, history, nature, etc. For instance, AI can suggest hiking or adventure sports if a guest loves outdoor activities or recommend a wine-tasting tour for guests with specific tastes.

2. Personalized travel recommendations (on hotels, flights, destinations)

Generative AI helps travel partners generate tailored trips based on individual preferences.

1. Complete trip planning: Travel partners can use AI to recommend personalized itineraries by analyzing past booking data, user preferences, and behavioral patterns. They can generate custom travel experiences, suggesting the best destinations, travel options, and hotel room categories based on guest’s interests, budgets, and travel history. The system can also recommend activities or go-to places like adventures, malls, parks, and restaurants nearby to help enhance the user’s experience.
2. Assistance in choosing hotel amenities: These models can analyze a guest’s previous location preferences (inside the city, quieter areas, near the metro station, etc.), type of tours chosen (family vacations, business trips, etc.) and amenities availed during past stays (specialized pet bedding, pool, gym, etc.) to suggest the most suitable stay from a range of property options (such as boutique hotels, business hotels, or resorts).

Platforms like Trip Advisor and Viator use AI to generate personalized itineraries based on guest choices, the length of stay, and even their mood of relaxation or adventure. The AI can provide daily recommendations on what to do, what to see, and where to eat, streamlining the entire trip experience.

3.    Personalized dining experiences

Restaurants and hotels are leveraging generative AI to tailor dining experiences as per guests’ tastes.

1. Menu recommendations: Hotel and restaurant chains use AI to suggest dishes & preparations based on guest preferences, dietary restrictions, or previous orders. For example, if a guest has previously enjoyed a specific type of cuisine (like Italian or Asian), the system might recommend similar dishes from the menu or suggest a personalized wine pairing based on their taste profile.
2. Dynamic experience personalization: Generative AI can suggest the best dining options, table recommendations, recommend special events (like musical nights, themed dinners, or wine tasting nights) and even generate customized meal plans based on a guest's health or dietary needs.

4.    AI-Powered Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants (like Concierge AI) are becoming essential tools in the hospitality industry, providing recommendations in real time.

5.    Loyalty Programs and Offers

Generative AI is revolutionizing loyalty programs by making personalized offers based on individual preferences.

1. Personalized loyalty programs: Memberships like Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy use AI-powered systems to analyze past stay patterns, spending habits, and guest behavior to recommend targeted rewards or personalized offers like free breakfast, spa discounts, upgrades, etc. The system can even suggest personalized offers based on the guest’s history, recommending a beach resort stay if they frequently choose beach destinations.
2. Upselling recommendations: Based on guest preferences and booking details, Gen AI can suggest room upgrades, premium services, or special experiences during stay. For instance, if a guest enjoys luxury services, AI can generate offers for premium rooms, private transfers, or prime time special dining experiences.

How Generative AI improves recommendations in hospitality

AI analyzes vast amounts of data (like guest profiles, behavior, and feedback) to generate data-driven insights and create tailored recommendations that feel personalized, timely, and relevant. Also, AI enables real-time personalization for hospitality businesses, by continuously upgrading recommendations dynamically based on guest interactions, usage, and feedback, ensuring that the guest always receives the most up-to-date and appropriate options.

AI can provide proactive service, which means that AI can anticipate needs, such as suggesting a last-minute dinner reservation or suggesting a new activity based on weather conditions, even before the guest has made a request. With the help of AI tools, hospitality businesses can also perform sentiment analysis for better experiences. By analyzing customer reviews, social media interactions, and feedback, Generative AI helps businesses understand guest sentiment. This allows hospitality providers to refine their services and tailor recommendations to meet evolving customer expectations.

Hotels, resorts, and travel platforms adopting Gen AI-powered hyper-personalization are already seeing measurable benefits such as higher guest satisfaction scores and Net Promoter Scores (NPS), increased ancillary revenue through personalized upselling, improved guest retention and repeat bookings, and streamlined operations with fewer manual interventions.

As travel continues its strong rebound and guest expectations climb higher, hyper-personalization is no longer a competitive edge, it’s the new standard. Hospitality brands that harness the power of Generative AI to truly understand and engage each guest will gain not only loyalty but long-term value. At its heart, hyper-personalization driven by Gen AI goes beyond cutting-edge technology—it’s about crafting experiences with empathy, warmth, and a human touch. In doing so, Generative AI is helping the hospitality industry reimagine guest experiences in ways that were once beyond reach.