Keeping ‘the human touch’ with AI

In hospitality, frontline teams like housekeeping are the heartbeat of guest satisfaction. Yet some new technologies are seen as adding pressure, or worse, as a threat to jobs. At Park Hall Resort & Spa, a Radisson Individuals property in the Lancashire countryside, the adoption of Inntelo AI is showing a very different story: how AI can act as a core support system for individual team members, making their work smoother, calmer, and more effective.

Inntelo AI was designed from the outset to serve both guest and team communications in one unified platform. This means that while guests enjoy instant, 24/7 service, housekeeping staff benefit from reduced stress, clearer workflows, and fewer distractions.

Too often, hotel technology has focused on cutting hours or enforcing productivity targets, especially in outsourced housekeeping environments, leading to high stress and a poor perception of the industry. Inntelo AI takes the opposite approach. By streamlining communication, it removes the clutter of radios, deck phones, personal WhatsApp chats, paper lists, and constant supervisor chasing.

Now, when a guest makes a request, AI routes it straight to the right team member in real time, no delays, no back-and-forth, no unnecessary pressure. The result is a calmer workplace where staff can focus on what they do best: delivering spotless rooms and memorable guest experiences.

Park Hall Resort & Spa is also the first hotel in the UK to adopt an AI Concierge in this way, marking an important step forward in how technology supports both service levels and frontline teams.

Inntelo AI was founded by British entrepreneur Asif Alidina, who has been driving technology adoption in housekeeping for over a decade. His journey into hotels began at just 16, during work experience at the Holiday Inn Kings Cross (now Crowne Plaza Kings Cross), later sparking a career dedicated to using technology to improve hotel and facilities management operations, with the aim of creating better working conditions for hotel teams.

Six months ago, we shared how Take it Personally (tiP) was changing the way guests tip hotel staff using a simple QR code to make gratitude effortless and direct. Since then, they’ve gained strong traction across UK hotels. Tip amounts have quadrupled, frequency has jumped fivefold, and, most importantly, housekeepers are finally feeling seen.

Hotel guests don’t want to download another app featuring corporate QR codes on nightstands for a two-night stay. But tiP is emotionally engaging. Guests use it to tip the person who made their bed.

The app designers decided to look at adding a human-centered QR code which could answer a question. The result is Ask tiP, a chat feature that appears the moment a guest scans the tip QR code. It answers basic questions like ‘How late is room service?’ without pulling staff off-task. No apps. No downloads. Just help, in the moment it’s needed.

Since launching pilots in June over one-third of routine calls are now handled through Ask tiP, leaving more time for cleaning and fewer distractions for staff. “It’s like having a concierge in every room,” according to the manager of the first pilot property. Ask tiP is set to be rolled out to all tiP hotel partners.

Konstantin Youdenko, one of the platform founders, says: “As hotels rush to implement AI, we believe the smartest technology amplifies human value rather than replacing it. It’s easy to forget: the best service doesn’t come from automation, it comes from people. Guests won’t remember the chatbot that told them breakfast hours. But they will remember the housekeeper who noticed it was their anniversary and left something special in the room.”

In recent issues we’ve looked at how robots can assist but not match the skills of our human housekeepers, and that’s still the case at Japan’s Henn na Hotels where multilingual humanoid robots greet guests at reception. Some are in smart uniforms, while a couple of receptions are ‘manned’ by smartly dressed dinosaurs.

It’s now 10 years since the group introduced robots and today around 150 operate at check-in desks or inside guest rooms. The latter include small humanoid robots serving as concierges. One hotel in Tokyo with 117 rooms aimed at business travellers has just a handful of human employees who come in at peak times.

A new set of reports from Statista, produced in partnership with Booking.com, sheds light on key developments shaping Europe’s accommodation sector – from evolving skills requirements and investment patterns to diverging national outlooks and the uneven pace of digital transformation.

While AI’s potential is recognised, this year’s data from the UK points to two pressing challenges: a widening skills gap and uneven digital progress. Nearly half of respondents cite difficulties hiring qualified staff. Meanwhile, while AI is making inroads in some areas, broader adoption remains limited – often due to cost or technical hurdles, reports Statista.

And at Cybernews, an independent media outlet where journalists and security experts use what is known as ‘white hat’ or ethical hacking aimed at helping organisations identify vulnerabilities, recent focus has been on Lenovo’s AI chatbot, Lena, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4. They discovered flaws which could potentially lead to data theft, customer support system compromise, and serve as a jumpboard for lateral movement within the company’s network. Cybernews responsibly disclosed the issue, and Lenovo has now protected its systems.

Žilvinas Girènas, head of product at nexos.ai says: “This isn’t just Lenovo’s problem. Any AI system without strict input and output controls creates an opening for attackers. Without strong guardrails and continuous monitoring, even small oversights can turn into major security incidents.”

Our final cautionary tale – or rather a plea – comes from Patrick Whyte, editor-in-chief of Hospitality Investor. Using AI to identify guests’ personal preferences can have a negative effect, he warns. Whyte says hoteliers must start considering where to draw the line, especially when it comes to the privacy consumers expect once they have closed their room doors.

“There’s a fine balance because in other areas of their lives consumers have become used to brands such as Amazon or Netflix making recommendations on future purchases or television programmes based on past choices, so in theory a similar opportunity awaits the travel industry. It just needs to be done in the right way.”