THE PLACE FOR AI IN LUXURY HOTEL SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is a branch of computer science that aims to instill intelligent behavior within machines. It involves creating algorithms that allow computers to mimic human intelligence, such as learning from experiences, understanding complex concepts, recognizing patterns, and making decisions. These abilities make AI vital in various fields, including healthcare, finance, and entertainment. And hospitality.

AI technology serves various purposes, ranging from text generation to coding assistance, video manipulation, audio generation, and image manipulation. All of these directly apply to use cases in luxury hotel marketing best practices. 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO EVALUATE INFLUENCERS

The power of influencers is indisputable. But with the influx of influencers comes the problem of evaluating them for a property, a region, or a niche target. Sourcing influencers with the help of AI becomes less about guesswork or gut feelings and more about getting a real answer. With the right prompts, AI can help hotels more quickly identify influencers and creators who could better fit their brand. 

THE DREAM DAYS OF DATA

Data Analysis is widely recognized as a critical part of the business--that can also drive you crazy. There’s a lot of data. Fortunately,  AI can quickly analyze large quantities of data and extrapolate customer behaviors and preferences that can be leveraged in digital advertising & in personalizing the guest experience. Let the machine read the spreadsheets. Free up your team to read between the lines of the analysis to develop new strategies based on actual and actionable insights. 

KEEP THE CONTENT MACHINE MOVING

We all need to expand our content library. In reality, we usually don’t have the luxury of an expanded budget to execute this vision. AI can efficiently help to build out your Content Library. With a few keywords and a good prompt, AI can quickly create content for social or other digital marketing needs. This is especially helpful for brands that may not have a large content budget or for hopping on more timely trends with elevated content.

While snappy headlines and solid SEO writing are critical, not every luxury hotel group has a copywriter on staff. AI can help you write social media copy based on the prompts. FYI, prompts are the questions you ask your AI interface. The more specific your inquiry, the more exact the AI response. Best of all, the prompts can be adjusted and refined as you see the responses.  In addition, AI can assist with digital marketing campaign ideas and execution, giving marketing folks some much-needed brainstorming help. 

LET’S GO BEYOND THE CHATBOT

Maybe the earliest use of AI showed up in Customer Service. We’re accustomed to how ChatBots can act as guest care with automated responses or a concierge service. But as it has evolved, this chat function can also monitor and aggregate sentiment so you can act quickly on negative messages across various digital channels. AI chatbots trained to answer customer questions 24/7 augment the support staff. AI reply assistants help hotels in online reputation management by replying to customer reviews automatically via various platforms. AI can recognize positive and negative reviews and bend accordingly in its answers.

EARLY ADOPTERS AMONG YOUR GUESTS

On the consumer side, travelers can use AI to research destinations and craft full-trip itineraries. One example might ask the AI to “list the 10 don’t miss but non-touristy sites in a region with the best local restaurant that is near each”. Another example might have a savvy traveler writing an AI prompt to “search blogs, reviews, and forum comments for insights into small hotels with a lowkey but attentive staff, exceptional views, and off-season value”. That’s quite specific, but that level of granularity is exactly how AI will help consumers quickly narrow their choices. Hotels must stay on top of how consumers use AI for travel to find ways to leverage it. 

KEEPING SMART WITH AI

There are challenges or limitations to consider when using AI in the hotel industry. While the prompts and information given to AI are critical, so is a simple quality control process. 

• AI accuracy should be fact-checked. It might sound true, but any dates, stats or other information needs to be verified.
• Remember that some AI tools may not have access to information after 2022. If you are researching, for example, social trends in 2023, you may get out-of-date information. 
• AI won’t tell you its information is out of date!
• AI does not have emotional intelligence. The prompt must include any tonal or sensitive component desired in the output. 
• Finally, and obviously, AI results should be blended with human oversight. And insights. 

CONCLUSION

At BCV, we’ve already begun leveraging AI for our clients and business and will continue to look for opportunities to fold it in for efficiency, effectiveness & results. It’s something that is exciting, powerful, and definitely game-changing for our industry. Whatever the buzz, the promise, or the practice, AI is here to stay. And we’re here to help you make it part of your hotel social media strategy. Let’s work together to increase the creativity and efficiency of your marketing efforts. And increase the number of stays at your property.