Most hospitality professionals firmly believe that AI cannot replace the human connection that is inherent to the hotel experience. But it can digitally assist staff to enhance human productivity. Hoteliers are also very aware of the benefits that AI can deliver to operations and finance. The ROI correlation is direct. However, AI in hospitality marketing is comparatively nascent.
“Marketing operates further upstream, in this case, the guest journey, dealing with intent, perception, and long-term value creation,” said Andre Fournier, chief commercial officer at Colorado-based hotel management company CoralTree Hospitality. “That makes ROI harder to isolate, especially when hotels lean heavily on third-party platforms where AI is already embedded, but largely controlled by someone else like Expedia or Booking.com. In those cases, hotels may technically be ‘using AI,’ but they don’t feel like they own it or benefit from it strategically.”
But he also noted that this is changing and recent data reflects this. According to PWC’s 2025 report AI at the Heart of Tourism and Hospitality – Powering Personalisation, Efficiency and Growth, over 70% of hoteliers identify operational resilience and employee productivity as key drivers of AI adoption. More than 60% view AI as a means to differentiate from competitors, signalling its emerging role as a strategic lever for marketing advantage.
At hotel brands and large hospitality companies, AI is moving into marketing strategies. CoralTree uses AI to assist with guest communications and to improve website visibility. In March, Hilton launched the new Hilton AI Planner in beta on Hilton.com. The tool makes recommendations from the broader Hilton portfolio based on guest preferences and criteria. Beta feedback findings will determine the tool’s expansion to other Hilton digital platforms.
Independent Hotels and AI-Powered Marketing
Pablo Delgado, CEO of Spain-based hotel technology firm Mirai believes such technology investments are why the hotel industry is increasingly concentrated among brands. “They can afford to invest, but the diversity of independent hotels is more appealing to consumers. Although, it’s a challenging landscape for independents to compete.”
Investments like those of Hilton and CoralTree are a response to the market. The Phocuswright report Travel Forward Data, Insights and Trends for 2026 found that 39% of U.S. travellers use AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini or AI-enabled search engines for travel research and trip planning. In the first quarter of 2025, more than one in five U.K. travellers did the same while French and German travellers lagged below 20%.
Reaching travellers so early on in the trip planning process is simply outside the purview of some hotel marketers. Alexandra Schmutterer, marketing director at Switzerland’s Appenzeller Huus would like to harness the power of AI in her daily professional life, if only to garner more website and social media exposure for the hotel. “But budgets are allocated and as revenue management is increasingly important at any hotel, that’s where AI investment is more likely to be made,” she said. Schmutterer further added that there are still independent hotels that believe in traditional marketing and print ad buys as well as independent hotels with dependably loyal guests and group business. So they have less incentive to invest in AI-powered marketing strategies.
Yet, that, too, is changing. In March, Hotel Speak reported a rise of AI use among independent hotels, citing a survey from the Institute of Tourism at HES-SO Valais-Wallis. Of the nearly 1,500 hotels polled across six European markets, 41% of independent hotels now leverage AI, with another 16% planning to adopt it. In terms of marketing, guest-facing AI-powered tools like chatbots, content generation and review analytics are priorities.
Simone Caracciolo, co-founder of hotel booking platform TopWorldHotel.com, works with over 250 boutique and design-led properties. With insight into their marketing strategies, he said “most are still experimenting, using AI in marketing for simple tasks like ad copy variants, translations and summaries.” But by nature of his business, Caracciolo is himself a hotel marketer and AI has changed his marketing approach. When internal data showed that posts about independent hotels generated 40% more engagement than hotels with established names, he shifted the mix. “We thought famous names would attract more attention, but our audience is looking for discovery, not confirmation,” he said.
AI Feeds on Content
AI empowers travellers to search for hotels with greater detail. They can cite a specific neighborhood within a destination along with even more granular hotel elements such as “a room with a Keurig coffee machine.” To deliver the most relevant selection of results, AI tools scrape the web for content rather than keywords. Hotel websites and their respective social media channels are part of that content. This is why Sam Weston, Head of AI and marketing at digital creative agency 80 DAYS recommends hotels shore up their marketing practice, brand and positioning. He added, “in a very saturated marketplace, you have to have clear brand positioning and a clear understanding of who and what your brand is to make a difference as AI starts forming its own opinions of your brand.”
In fact, 82% of links cited by AI result from earned media, according to global media monitoring service Muck Rack’s report Facts About How AI Affects PR in 2026.
Along with editorial by third parties, AI also puts a premium on social media posts and guest reviews. Yannis Moati, CEO at hotel booking platform HotelsbyDay.com explained, “AI accelerates conversions toward good service. …AI isn’t about the highest [keyword] bidder, it’s about recommending the genuine experience.”
AI in Hotel Marketing Across the Chain Scale
Whether that experience is at a luxury, independent or even a value-oriented hotel, Weston also pointed out that travellers fundamentally want to book a reliable and trustworthy hotel so brand reputation across all channels is always important.
So, as a hospitality marketing tool, AI can put all hotels on equal footing or, in the words of Agentic Hospitality’s Co-Founder and Chief AI Officer Brad Brewer, “a campsite can gain as much visibility as a Las Vegas property.” Brewer has had success creating a marketing strategy for a small, limited service hotel brand that focused first on search with an AI infrastructure layered on top. The approach increased the brand’s revenue by US$250,000 in just the first year.
Beyond Brewer’s case study, it’s difficult to gauge the impact of AI-powered marketing tools on specific chain scales within the hotel industry. The overall role of AI in luxury hotels occasionally earns mention. Deloitte’s 2024 report AI’s Transformative Role in the Hospitality Industry instructs luxury hoteliers to use AI to enhance, not replace, human interaction. At the 2025 Destination AI: Hospitality Summit, there was a 30-minute session entitled Luxury Guest Experience, Reimagined with AI. Otherwise, publicly available data doesn’t yet exist.
But that isn’t to say that AI’s role in hospitality marketing is a matter of wait-and-see. “If your property isn’t showing up in AI-powered search and discovery, you’re invisible to a growing and fast-moving share of your future guests,” said Robyn Rice, senior director, global enterprise hotel chains at travel advertising and marketing agency Sojern. “The brands that treat this as optional are going to find themselves playing catch-up in a game that’s already well underway.”
