Latest news with #hoteltechnology
Skift
4 days ago
- Business
- Skift
Resorts World Las Vegas Debuts Room Keys in Apple Wallet, No App Needed — Exclusive
Digital room keys have been around for years, but the catch has been that guests have to download a hotel's app to make them work. So some hoteliers are hoping to simplify things. Resorts World Las Vegas has become the first major hotel on the Strip to let guests store their room keys in Apple Wallet, ending the need to download a hotel's app to access rooms digitally. The 3,506-room resort on the Las Vegas Strip said Monday it had launched the technology to reduce the long lines for check in. "Having a guest stand in line to check in is a guest dissatisfied," said Shannon McCallum, vice president of hotel operations at Resorts World Las Vegas, where lines could stretch to over 20 minutes at peak times. Traditional mobile key systems required guests to download hotel apps and often forced them to still visit the front desk for verification. Now most guests can instead check in through a web link sent via email or by scanning a QR code and then save their room key directly to their iPhone's Apple Wallet. The idea is similar to digitally storing boarding passes or event tickets on a device. No More App Requirement Since 2021, Apple has let guests store
Hospitality Net
13-06-2025
- Business
- Hospitality Net
Rebuilding hotel tech stacks for the Agentic AI era Philip Barton
A new kind of traveller is emerging, one who may never visit your website, click an ad, or speak to a human. Instead, they rely on their personal AI agent to plan, compare, negotiate, and book every aspect of their trip. This shift marks a seismic change in how travel is discovered and transacted, demanding a fundamental rethink of hotel technology stacks. Are hoteliers ready for this new class of guests and their digital representatives? Consider how AI-driven website traffic is already having a dramatic impact: According to Ahrefs, 63% of websites receive AI traffic , with smaller sites experiencing the highest proportion. , with smaller sites experiencing the highest proportion. A survey by Adobe reveals that traffic from generative AI sources (chatbots or AI-powered search assistants) on U.S. travel websites rose 1,700% from Jul 2024 to Feb same survey shows that visitors arriving via generative AI tools show 8% higher engagement, view 12% more pages, and have a 23% lower bounce rate than non-AI traffic sources. reveals that traffic from generative AI sources (chatbots or AI-powered search assistants) on U.S. travel websites rose 1,700% from Jul 2024 to Feb same survey shows that visitors arriving via generative AI tools show 8% higher engagement, view 12% more pages, and have a 23% lower bounce rate than non-AI traffic sources. Cloudflare found that monthly traffic to generative AI services grew by 251%between February 2024 and March 2025. So, what does this all mean for the hospitality industry? Most hospitality tech stacks weren't built for AI; they were designed for humans, not machines. Legacy systems are slow, fragmented, and incapable of speaking the language of autonomous AI. To stay visible and bookable in an AI-agent-first ecosystem, hotels must rethink their infrastructure from the data layer up, embracing real-time interoperability, AI-native protocols, and machine-readable data formats. Is your data AI-ready? The rise of AI agents demands a fundamental shift in how hotels manage and present their data. Traditional website designs optimised for visual appeal and manual navigation are insufficient for engaging with AI-driven tools. Hotels must evaluate their systems against the following criteria: Structured data formats: Implement markup to make room availability, pricing, and amenities accessible to AI crawlers. Implement markup to make room availability, pricing, and amenities accessible to AI crawlers. Real-time accessibility: Ensure APIs deliver fast, accurate responses to queries from AI agents, with latency ideally under 100ms and definitely under 200ms. The 95th percentile for API response times should always be under 3 seconds. Ensure APIs deliver fast, accurate responses to queries from AI agents, with latency ideally under 100ms and definitely under 200ms. The 95th percentile for API response times should always be under 3 seconds. Interoperability: Adopt protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable seamless interaction between hotel systems and external AI platforms. Adopt protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) to enable seamless interaction between hotel systems and external AI platforms. Dynamic content updates: Automate inventory and pricing updates to reflect real-time changes, ensuring AI agents always access the latest information. Hotels that fail to meet these standards risk becoming invisible to AI agents, which prioritise systems capable of delivering clean, actionable data. By preparing their data for this new user class, hoteliers can ensure they remain competitive in an increasingly automated travel ecosystem. Building the foundation: A focused, AI-ready architecture Modern hospitality stacks begin with unified data ecosystems that aggregate guest profiles, operational metrics, and market signals into cloud-based repositories. This eliminates silos between PMS, CRM, and revenue management systems, creating a single source of truth. Unifying data overlaid with semantic meaning is the prerequisite for AI innovation, enabling real-time analysis of guest preferences, occupancy trends, and competitive pricing. With clean data pipelines, hotels can deploy AI co-pilots that: Adjust room rates dynamically using market demand signals Predict guest preferences (room, meal selection, room settings, etc) Handle customer inquiries through conversational AI Optimise housekeeping routes and inventory orders. These systems learn continuously, improving efficiency and personalisation over time. Agentic integration: MCP and the rise of the A2A Economy The emergence of AI agents opens a new paradigm for hotels: active participation in the agentic economy. Hotels can no longer passively rely on traditional distribution channels. To thrive, they must embrace strategies that enable seamless interaction with AI agents, creating new avenues for booking, personalisation, and revenue generation. This starts with understanding and implementing key protocols such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which paves the way for the Agent-to-Agent (A2A) economy. MCP is a new and evolving protocol that transforms hotels into active participants in the A2A economy. It standardises how AI agents interface with hotel systems, expanding the capabilities of individual agents by enabling them to connect and interact with other specialised agents, leading to richer and more versatile functionalities. This benefits hotels as it allows their systems to: Offer more comprehensive travel solutions : By connecting with external AI agents, hotels can offer bundled packages that include flights, transportation, and local experiences, all coordinated seamlessly. : By connecting with external AI agents, hotels can offer bundled packages that include flights, transportation, and local experiences, all coordinated seamlessly. Reach a wider audience : Integration with diverse AI travel platforms expands the hotel's reach beyond traditional channels, tapping into new customer segments. : Integration with diverse AI travel platforms expands the hotel's reach beyond traditional channels, tapping into new customer segments. Improve efficiency and reduce costs: Automating interactions with AI agents minimises the need for human intervention in routine tasks, freeing up staff to focus on higher-value activities. MCP is a rapidly evolving landscape that can potentially eliminate fragile API integrations, allowing properties to connect with numerous services through a single MCP gateway. Imagine a guest's travel agent AI seamlessly booking rooms, spa services, and dinner reservations by interfacing directly with your hotel's agent. Optimising the agent experience 8Traditionally, websites have focused on the user experience (UX). However, the rise of AI demands a focus on the agent experience (AX) that must consider a different set of technical priorities: AI-accessible inventory: Expose rooms, amenities, and add-ons through GraphQL APIs and enable multi-property package bookings in a single transaction. Expose rooms, amenities, and add-ons through GraphQL APIs and enable multi-property package bookings in a single transaction. Machine-readable content: Replace visual call to actions (CTAs) with annotations, reconsider SEO in the context of how LLMs view your brand visibility, and implement tags for preferential crawling. Replace visual call to actions (CTAs) with annotations, reconsider SEO in the context of how LLMs view your brand visibility, and implement tags for preferential crawling. Agent Experience (AX) design: Develop parallel website versions optimized for API interactions. Semantic consistency and support for multiple data sources, including social and query graphs, are all key. Develop parallel website versions optimized for API interactions. Semantic consistency and support for multiple data sources, including social and query graphs, are all key. Dynamic commission structures: Create lower AI-specific affiliate tiers and offer bulk booking discounts for high-intent agent queries. Transitioning from legacy systems to seize the AI opportunity The transition to an agent-mediated hospitality landscape is not a distant possibility but an accelerating reality. Hotels that delay implementing MCP capabilities and an agent-friendly infrastructure risk significant market share erosion within 12-18 months as AI travel planning becomes mainstream. Forward-thinking properties are already capturing early-adopter advantages through strategic partnerships with emerging AI travel platforms. The challenge now is how quickly hoteliers can transform their digital infrastructure to become preferred partners in the A2A economy, where AI agents will increasingly mediate guest relationships. The journey to an AI-first architecture means hotels must adopt a modern technology stack by: Phasing out on-premise systems with cloud-native platforms offering open API access. Adopting composable data and platform architecture using microservices for easy MCP integration. Considering website SEO and agentic presentation pathways. Retraining staff on AI-assisted workflows, reducing manual data entry. Revamped stacks for the Agentic AI era will drive operational efficiency and real-time channel optimisation by automatically redistributing inventory across the most profitable channels and guest profiles. First-mover hoteliers will help shape the new distribution paradigm and have greater control over their digital destiny in the age of AI.
Hospitality Net
11-06-2025
- Business
- Hospitality Net
70% of Travelers Would Skip the Front Desk, Mews Survey Reveals: The Rise of Self-Check-In Hotels
The traditional hotel front desk is no longer a must-stop for modern guests, as revealed by new Mews-commissioned research. Seventy percent of American travelers are likely to check themselves into a hotel using an app or a self-service kiosk instead of a traditional front desk. This preference skyrockets to 82% among Gen Z travelers, signaling a fundamental shift in how guests want to interact with hotels. Self-service isn't just about speed – it's a key driver of guest satisfaction and loyalty. In a survey of 2,000 U.S. travelers, frustrations with traditional hotel operations remain clear: 82% of current hotel loyalty members report pain points with existing systems, including lengthy check-in processes, limited flexibility, and outdated service models that fail to meet modern expectations. I founded Mews to transform the traditional hotel experience by eliminating the reception desk to allow staff to engage more personally with guests, said Richard Valtr, Founder of Mews. Since bringing Mews Kiosks to hotels in the U.S., 30% of guests check-in via the Kiosk, cutting check-in time by a third and freeing up staff to really welcome their guests and provide remarkable experiences throughout their stay, not to mention the fact that Kiosks drive 25% higher upsells in our hotels today. Waiting in the lobby queue is simply not a hospitable experience for today's travelers, it's another example where if the technology works, guests value convenience over tradition. U.S Hotels Surpass Global Benchmarks in Digital Adoption Mews' own data shows that U.S. properties are leading the way in self-service: In the U.S., 30% of all reservations among Kiosk-enabled hotels are checked in through Mews Kiosk, versus a global benchmark of 20% 10.5% of total U.S. reservations use the Mews Guest Portal for check-in (compared to the global average of 8.6%), marking a 20% higher preference for online check-in among U.S. guests. Hotels are also seeing measurable benefits. Guests checking in via kiosk are three times more likely to purchase an upsell, generating nearly 70% more upsell revenue per check-in compared to those using the front desk. Other insights from the survey include: Nearly 80% of guests most likely to return to a hotel cite personalized amenities as the reason, with the sentiment strongest among Gen Z travelers (89%). 93% of travelers are willing to share personal data in order to improve their experiences with hotels, including details on preferred check-in/out times (60%), gender preferences (49%), food and beverage choices (48%), age (47%) and desired amenities and activities (46%). At Generator, we're always looking for ways to enhance the guest experience, from our smart, design-led spaces to the technology that powers the guest journey, said Annajane Guzel, Global Director of Brand Marketing at Generator. Our self-check-in kiosks at Generator Miami have become an essential part of how we create a seamless experience for our guests who value efficiency. By leveraging this smart technology, we're not only streamlining operations but elevating the guest experience in a way that feels intuitive, flexible, and reflective of how our guests travel. Our self-check-in kiosks give guests the autonomy to arrive on their own terms, skip the desk, and dive straight into the true Generator experience - whether that's exploring like a local or relaxing by the pool with a cocktail in hand. Valtr added, The message from travelers is clear: frictionless convenience is the new standard. This isn't about eliminating human interaction – it's about empowering both guests and staff to create more meaningful touchpoints and experiences. Hotels embracing this evolution will earn the loyalty of tomorrow's most valuable guests. The data from both travelers and hotels is clear: the front desk era is giving way to a digital-first guest journey, where flexibility, personalization, and operational excellence will shine. About Mews Mews is the leading platform for the new era of hospitality. Powering over 12,500 customers across more than 85 countries, Mews Hospitality Cloud is designed to streamline operations for modern hoteliers, transform the guest experience and create more profitable businesses. Customers include BWH Hotels, Strawberry, The Social Hub and Airelles Collection. Mews was named Best PMS (2024, 2025) and listed among the Best Places to Work in Hotel Tech (2021, 2022, 2024, 2025) by Hotel Tech Report. Mews has raised $410 million from investors including Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Kinnevik and Tiger Global to transform hospitality. Katie Halfhead Senior Communications Manager
