How hotel chains worldwide are adopting AI-driven tools — and what’s standing in their way
Nov 21, 2025
The latest global study by h2c GmbH investigates how major hotel chains around the world are implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, what benefits they’re seeing, and where the obstacles remain. With responses from 189 participants representing 171 hotel chains across Europe, the Middle East & Africa, Asia Pacific and the Americas, the research shows that while a large majority have begun using AI (78 %) and even more are planning further implementation (89 %), many initiatives remain in pilot form and struggle with enterprise-wide scale-up. The report highlights key value areas (business intelligence, chatbots, marketing automation), but also significant gaps in trust, ROI measurement and integration across functions.
Key takeaways
- Implementation prevalence: About 78 % of hotel chains surveyed already use some form of AI, and 89 % plan further applications — showing strong interest and early adoption.
- Value-gap challenge: Despite high adoption, average ‘AI reliance’ scores lag behind ‘trust’ scores, indicating that many hotels use AI tools but are not yet confident in their outcomes or reliability.
- Primary value zones: The areas most commonly cited for delivering AI-driven value include business intelligence, digital marketing/guest engagement and chatbot-based guest interactions.
- Operational bottlenecks: Common barriers to broader adoption include unclear strategy (“make vs. buy” decisions), skills shortages, lack of reliable ROI metrics, and limited integration beyond pilot projects.
- Technology focus shift: While established tools like chatbots remain high on agendas, the innovation focus is shifting toward robotic process automation (RPA), AI agents and more advanced automation systems.
- Human factor remains critical: Though automation gains traction, the study emphasises that hotels must still align AI adoption with service-oriented values (empathy, guest connection, trust) to preserve the core hospitality promise.
- Strategic implication for hoteliers: For hotel executives, the message is that AI offers clear opportunity — but success depends less on acquiring tools and more on embedding them into consistent workflows, measuring their business impact, and aligning them with human-centred service design.
Get the full report at h2c
