10 Best Hotel Chatbots in 2024

Chatbots can deliver valuable benefits to hotels of all sizes, from higher guest satisfaction scores to increased revenue. In simple terms, a chatbot is a computer program that simulates conversation with a technology called natural language processing to answer questions and resolve inquiries without the need for human interaction. In hotels, chatbots can answer questions on your website, remind guests about check-in policies, book reservations at your outlets, send invoices, and more.

• Answers questions: The chatbot can respond to a wide variety of guest queries at every stage of the guest experience. Pre-stay, the chatbot can answer questions on your website before a guest has booked. When the guest is in-house, the chatbot can also answer questions about your hotel or services.

• Handles requests: In addition to simply providing information, a more sophisticated chatbot can facilitate transactions for your guests. For instance, a guest who is in-house can ask the chatbot to book a restaurant reservation or request a late check-out.

• Encourage direct bookings and upsells: A chatbot can also drive revenue. On your website, the chatbot can share special offers for booking direct or room upgrades on the checkout page. During a guest’s stay, the chatbot can also promote your F&B or spa outlets and ancillary services that can increase your topline revenue.

• Makes guest communication more efficient. Both guests and staff can benefit greatly from implementation of a chatbot. Guests will get faster, more accurate responses to their inquiries and can easily communicate with the chatbot via their preferred channel. Employees can work more efficiently without having to respond to the same questions over and over again, freeing up time to handle escalations or proactive relationship-building.

• Boosts revenue and direct bookings. A chatbot acts like your secret sales weapon, using AI to recommend upsells and offers to guests along each step in their journey. Indirectly, a chatbot can also boost revenue by increasing your guest review scores.

Instant replies: Guests don’t want to wait around for answers, so your chatbot must be able to respond to inquiries instantaneously.

Multi-channel functionality: The ability to communicate with guests on all channels (your website, email, SMS, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and more) helps a chatbot add maximum value.

Multiple language support: If your hotel welcomes many international guests, then you’ll want to find a chatbot with good multilingual support. When the chatbot can speak every guest’s language, it can significantly improve the guest experience because it knocks down the language barrier that might exist with in-person communication.

Natural tone and vocabulary: Nobody enjoys communicating with a chatbot that sounds like a robot or doesn’t understand what you’re saying, so it’s essential to choose a chatbot that understands slang and idioms.

Staff dashboard: No chatbot is perfect, and you will undoubtedly need to handle some complex inquiries manually from time to time. Chatbots include a dashboard that allow you to review all tickets and follow up on the ones the chatbot wasn’t able to resolve on its own.

Integrations: Maximize a chatbot’s power by connecting it to other systems at your hotel, like your property management system, your customer relationship management system, and your Facebook and Google pages.

Chatbots typically charge a monthly fee, and the fee increases with the level of functionality and support offered. You can find a very basic, industry-agnostic chatbot for around $50 per month, but note that these chatbots usually don’t have integrations with hospitality software, like your PMS. A basic chatbot designed for hotels will run around $100 per month, and a more advanced hotel-specific chatbot will be upwards of $200 per month. There’s usually no setup or implementation fee.

Adding a chatbot to your hotel’s website isn’t as simple as pasting a few lines of code; the implementation process can actually be quite lengthy and complex because you need to “train” the chatbot on all the nuances of your hotel. Before the chatbot can accurately answer questions like “how much does parking cost?” and “can I bring my dog?” you need to teach the chatbot the correct answers. The software vendor you choose will guide you throughout the setup process.

After setup is complete, it’s prudent to test the chatbot many times. Ask it all the questions you can think of, no matter how obscure. You want to verify that the chatbot can answer correctly or escalate the inquiry to your guest service team for further assistance. During this time, you’ll also want to conduct training so your staff know how to best interact with it and respond to escalations.

Finally, after testing is complete and the chatbot is performing well, you can launch it on your guest-facing channels. Remember that your website isn’t the only place a chatbot can add value; you can add links or QR codes to access it in your welcome emails, in your guestrooms, and on signage in public areas.

Hotel chatbots help hotels to better interact with potential guests.

These tools provide uninterrupted availability to guests who require additional assistance when making a reservation, inquiring about amenities, or creating additional requests regarding their accommodation.

The most common hotel chatbot types include rule-based chatbots and live chatbots based on artificial intelligence. Here is a comparison of the two that helps you choose the best fit for your business operations.

Rule-Based Chatbots vs. Live Chat (Conversational AI): What is the Difference?

Hotel chatbots (rule-based chatbots) are based on predefined rules of communication. They answer the already anticipated questions by recognizing keywords in them. These answers are strict in form and suitable for handling routine tasks that require consistent and specific responses.

On the other hand, live chatbots (conversational AI) are based on AI and NLP (natural language processing). They can recognize what the guest is inquiring about and learn from those interactions.

As a result, live chatbots provide personalized assistance, recommendations, and interaction analytics that improve future support. Unlike rule-based chatbots, conversational AI answers more complex questions and adjusts them to provide better service and responsiveness.

This is because conversational AI does not follow a strict set of rules, but the natural flow of conversation.

Transforming Guest Experiences in Hotels with Conversational AI

Conversational AI does not only enhance business operations but also contributes to an enjoyable stay for your guests. Namely, conversational AI can learn from the guests' queries from the very first input.

As a result, it anticipates their needs and worries to address them promptly and accurately with suitable solutions. Additionally, conversational AI bases its recommendations on this communication, predicting and suggesting accommodation options, tour spots, restaurants, and more.

Conversational AI provides a much more natural flow of conversation than other chatbots. This is because conversational chatbots aim to learn and improve themselves - rather than just provide the service and move on to the next guest and their query.

This chatbot builts on the knowledge it receives with each interaction to make it more informative and enjoyable for the guest. This is achieved through round-the-clock support and new and better suggestions each time a new chat begins.

Aside from personalization and availability, conversational AI improves operational efficiency. Hotels can easily integrate their property management systems and business intelligence tools with conversational chatbots.

As a result, they receive automatic updates on check-ins and check-outs, room availability, guest experience, maintenance, and other aspects of the hotel business that bring success and customer satisfaction. Most importantly, these results are transparent, instant, and accurate, since using conversational AI minimizes the chances of human errors in daily tasks.

This enables your staff to meet the guests’ needs with ease and efficiency that your competition often lacks.

Lastly, you should not disregard the effect of conversational AI on your finances. With the broader implementation of artificial intelligence and machine learning in business operations, you can significantly reduce costs tied to live support.

Instead, your current and future guests can benefit from the accumulated knowledge that conversational chatbots provide along with personalized recommendations based on your guests’ preferences and habits.

Hotel Chatbot Examples

Implementing various chatbot solutions into daily hotel tasks results in higher efficiency with fewer costs.

Hotel chatbots provide 24/7 support to current and prospective guests, promptly addressing their queries while personalizing recommendations for which spots to visit, food to taste, or how to get the best out of their stay in other ways.

Here are some examples of hotels that successfully implement hotel chatbots to enhance their productivity, bring in more revenue by reducing costs, and retain customer satisfaction.

1. Marriott International - Marriott Bonvoy App

The Marriott Bonvoy mobile app is one of the most user-friendly, appealing, and luxurious-looking apps for managing bookings. It provides an enjoyable booking experience to guests in any of Marriott’s worldwide locations.

Guests can easily set up detailed filters to specify their searches in terms of duration, room preference, cuisine, and other personal desires or needs for their stays. Family, solo, or business - Marriott’s Bonvoy app chatbot provides personalized offers for the most memorable experience during the guests’ stay at one of your hotels.

2. Accor Hotels - the Accorbot

The Accor Hotels app is a prime example of hotel chatbots that work directly to benefit their guests first. The Accorbot bases its service on notifying guests about upcoming discounts, special offers, and promotions for bookings.

The user-friendly interface makes it easy for guests to find Accor Hotels on their favorite destinations globally, as well as to personalize their stays with extra services, free amenities, discounts on tours, parking, and more.

The Accor Hotels chatbot looks quite simple and easy to use, which is part of its appeal. No flashy ads or complicated navigation - this hotel is straight to the point when assisting.

3. Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts - The Four Seasons Chat

The name of Four Seasons Hotels’ chatbot is a wordplay that emphasizes the chatbot's availability and speed in responding to queries. Whether contacted by your current or potential guests, this chatbot assists immediately and to the best of its abilities, which are quite versatile.

Additionally, there are special perks for current guests on the app. Namely, they can reach the concierge directly through the app day or night to get assistance.

Your guests do not need to leave the comfort of their Four Seasons Hotel beds and stroll down to the reception desk. Instead, they can ask chatbots for virtual assistance. Then, the hotel staff will be promptly notified which guest has a query or a request and will address it at their earliest availability.