CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Hotel companies can't be scared to experiment with ways artificial intelligence can support their people.
Speaking at the 2024 HITEC conference, Arlene Ramirez, regional vice president of finance at CoralTree Hospitality, said companies not willing to experiment with the possibilities of AI will be left behind by their competitors.
"What you really have to worry about is how your competition is going to use AI," she said.
She said some of the earliest use-cases for AI in hotels include staff management, training and better personalization of the guest experience on property.
Ramirez noted one of the challenges in using AI for employee training is the hotel industry doesn't necessarily gather as many data points on front-line employee performance as other industries, but there are still ways to supplement that.
"We can see what guests are saying about our employees. We can ask our employees to do self-evaluations," she said.
Generative AI can also be a good, quick tool for generating training content — such as a quiz about on-property amenities — without risking any sort of proprietary data.
"We need to create a culture of continuous learning when it comes to wanting to incorporate technology, which means we need to look at personalized learning recommendations," she said. "Not everyone is tech-savvy."
She said generative AI could be a way for leaders to more quickly craft "micro-learning" opportunities for their employees that engage them in different ways based on their styles of learning and can include things such as short-form videos.
She noted some systems already exist that can use AI to help companies better deploy their resources, track demand and schedule employees to match that demand.
"Some of us have optimized staffing and scheduling systems that read your [property-management system] or [point of sale] for reservations," she said, noting on the restaurant side, technology is available that schedules specific servers based on who is making reservations.
The amount of data amassed on guests and their preferences, particularly through brand loyalty systems, can help employees "get ahead of the game" in face-to-face interactions with the help of AI, Ramirez said.
"We can know what the customer wants, and we can provide that service," she said.
The way this would ideally be deployed, she said, would be by presenting a quick dossier on guests' preferences for things such as room types and experiences at check in, allowing employees to give better recommendations off the cuff.
"These are things the technology can't do," she said. "It can't personalize or have that emotional connection."
Ramirez said using technology properly frees up the human beings involved to have more meaningful interactions and use skills artificial intelligence can't replicate.
"We have empathy and adaptability," she said. "We are creative and innovative."
She noted the important part of this is using the technology not to replace an interaction between employees and guests but to elevate it. That can be as simple as noticing 50% of front desk calls ask about towels at the pool and noting employees should note that at check in.
"We could learn so much from the data we're capturing, but we're not using it," Ramirez said.