AI is revolutionising the world of hospitality. Whether hoteliers are ready or not, change is happening, and the industry must embrace it to stay ahead of the curve, keep guests happy and stay profitable.

In recent years AI chatbots have evolved to become a key component of our hospitality teams, enhancing guest experience and helping staff to deliver the best possible service. But with this evolution comes steepening guest expectations. So, how do we maximise AI whilst keeping the all-important personal touch?

The brand-new Zonal Hotel Solutions integration, HiJiffy, can answer 85% of your guests’ queries instantly, via your website, social media, or WhatsApp. Pre-stay, the Chatbot can answer FAQs, manage direct bookings and arrange upgrades and additional extras, streamlining the booking experience for guests.

For your team, HiJiffy provides notifications, assigns priority status to requests and enquiries and improves internal communications, ensuring staff are providing the best possible customer service whilst cutting operational costs.

Here are some of the ways that Chatbots such as HiJiffy can help your hotel run more smoothly.

Personalisation

Chatbots are becoming a celebrity member of staff for some hotels, such as ‘Connie’, Hilton’s robot concierge service and ‘Rose’ the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas’ customer service bot. These instantly recognisable ‘characters’ provide an ultra-personalised and sometimes comedic service for guests, bringing an element of fun to the customer service experience.

Alongside the entertainment value of AI, the technology creates the opportunity for a more personalised hotel stay with special touches and room settings. Specially designed lighting, temperature, pillows and toiletries can be added to rooms depending on guest preferences and chatbots can communicate with staff to create reminders about dietary and access requirements throughout each stay.

These personalised communications through text or WhatsApp mean that whether guests want answers to a question, to book a table or need assistance, fast and reliable service is just a click away 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Scheduling and efficiency

AI can act as your front-of-house service, with effective check-in and check-out services. This contactless service streamlines the process and eliminates busy queues and crowded foyers.

Automated checkout services alert staff when a room needs turning over, enabling slick housekeeping routines and saving staff time throughout their busy shifts.

AI communications can also analyse accurate stock data and create alerts when items are running low. Notifications to staff will help your teams to keep on top of inventory management and ordering across all areas of the hotel, ensuring customers are always well-catered throughout every step of their stay.

Free up staff time

There’s no denying that staff shortages are one of the biggest challenges facing the hospitality industry right now and AI is fast becoming a great solution. Chatbots can take on time-consuming tasks, to let your talented hospitality staff get on with doing what they do best, all while keeping costs down.

By answering questions, taking requests and organising check-in/check-out, Chatbots can give accurate, timely information to guests, giving your front-of-house staff more time to create human connections and relationships with customers, providing the service that is required to promote repeat bookings.

Post stay

Chatbots can play a vital role in collecting valuable feedback once guests have checked out. Through targeted links and personalised messages on WhatsApp, text and email, Chatbots make the process of reviews quick and easy for guests, who can provide feedback via their phones in an instant.

Chatbots such as HiJiffy centralise information, preserve history and create guest segmentation, remembering guest information and preferences with each stay at your hotel. This process creates a predictive service, helping to build customer loyalty by creating familiarity during each stay.

What’s more, guest data is stored and used within marketing decision-making to produce ultra-personalised email follow-ups, with offers, events and room rates refined for the individual based on past experiences.

Within this ever-changing technological climate, guests are growing to expect instant access to the information and services they need, putting increasing pressure on the hospitality industry to cater for this demand. By working in partnership with AI tools, and embracing the technology, hotels can boost operational efficiency, optimise their time and keep guests happy, all while bringing costs down.

The end of 2024 saw the first-ever joint session of Tourism Ministers in Azerbaijan, where The World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance launched its groundbreaking list of universal sustainability KPIs for the world’s hospitality industry.

Focusing on CO2 emissions, water and energy usage and waste management, the first wave of KPIs emphasised transparent and consistent methods of reporting for businesses to assess their performances.

The initiative is part of the COP29 Declaration on Enhanced Climate Action in Tourism, which set out to emphasise the importance of action within the hospitality industry to help tackle the global climate crisis while retaining economic sustainability.

The KPIs aim to drive consumers to make more sustainable travel choices and help hospitality businesses create positive change for the environment.

So, what does this mean for our customers? And how can we work together to make significant steps towards a sustainable future for the industry?

At Zonal Hotel Solutions, we are truly committed to helping our customers achieve the targets set out for them by organisations such as The World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance. Here, we discuss how our integrations and products can help hoteliers reach their sustainability goals.

Zonal’s Environmental Integrations

The hospitality sector accounts for up to 15% of UK greenhouse gases, and with growing concern amongst guests about sustainability, it’s never been more important for businesses to uphold their environmental promises. In fact, the latest findings by YouGov show that 64% of British consumers are willing to pay up to 10% more for sustainable foods and drinks and Visit Britain reports that 58% of people want to stay in accommodation with green awards and environmentally friendly practices.

Zonal’s host of environmental integrations are designed to boost your tech stack, and help your hotel go green.

Net Zero Now

Net Zero Now helps hospitality businesses reach the carbon emissions KPI set out by the alliance, with automated carbon accounting, tailored emissions reduction plans and a trusted Certification Mark.

The software automatically generates reports for all relevant disclosures and provides clear strategies for businesses on how to cut their emissions, while enhancing their brand reputation and building trust with green-conscious customers.

Play It Green

It’s been found that 81% of consumers believe companies should help to improve the environment, so Play It Green supports hospitality businesses to actively demonstrate positive change.

This integration offers diners in your hotel’s restaurant the chance to rebalance the carbon impact of their meals and gift to charity whilst paying their bill. Each automatically added (but non-fixed) £1 plants two trees and regifts 10p to charity. Play it Green also provides staff training on sustainable culture within the workplace and educational articles for hotels and restaurants.

GiftTrees

With our Gift Trees integration, it costs you nothing to help offset the environmental impact of meals from your hotel and help lift people out of extreme poverty. Diners in your hotel’s restaurants can opt into a small fee of £1.23 on their final bill to help provide farming families with food, income, access to education, clothing, medicine, and safe homes.

GiftTrees is seamlessly integrated with Zonal’s EPoS, allowing hoteliers to easily boost their societal impact and benefit the environment through investment in agroforestry systems.

Zero Carbon Forum

By helping businesses to drill down into their specific brand, site, supplier or ingredient-level emissions on a granular level, Zero Carbon Forum provides industry benchmarks to help each individual team member recognise the carbon impact of their daily practices whilst working at your hotel.

Through easily accessible and detailed data reports, this integration helps hospitality businesses identify the depth of their carbon footprint and put actionable processes into place to cut emissions and financial losses.

Waste Management

Restaurants and hotels lose a huge £2.6 billion to 1 million tonnes of food waste each year in the UK, 75% of which could be avoided. The World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance has calculated that 18% of all world food waste is created by the hospitality industry, citing it as a ‘priority’ within its recent KPIs.

To enable hoteliers to tackle this, Zonal’s Purchase-to-Pay system alerts kitchen staff when stock is running low and gives real-time recommendations for re-ordering and menu planning based on individual requirements and guest behaviour.

The software automatically sends an order to suppliers for fulfilment, saving chefs precious time and streamlining kitchen operations. This process significantly reduces food waste and over-ordering, greatly cutting costs and helping the environment.

As we move into 2025, it’s evident that sustainability must be at the forefront of every hotelier’s business plan. With help from Zonal’s comprehensive suite of technology, hitting sustainability KPIs will become more accessible, streamlined and comprehensive than ever.

To read more about the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance and COP29 Declaration on Enhanced Climate Action in Tourism, visit: https://sustainablehospitalityalliance.org/universal-sustainability-kpis-cop29/.

The boom in wellness travel has been undeniable in recent years, as tourists seek more downtime than party time and look to use their time away to rest and unwind from the growing pressures of modern life.

Part of this lean towards well-being is a growing interest in sleep and its fundamental role in our health; with a good night’s sleep moving higher and higher up the list of traveller’s priorities. In fact, 43% of UK holidaymakers want to improve their sleep while staying away from home.

With 80% of hotel guests struggling to catch Z’s during stays, hotels worldwide are tapping into the growing trend of ‘Sleep Tourism’, offering hyper-personalised experiences to improve guest’s sleep based on their individual preferences.

So, how can your hotel tap into this trend?

With Zonal’s marketing suite, hotels can tempt their guests pre-stay with luxurious sleep experiences and offer premium, personalised sleep aids such as quality mattresses, pillow menus and sound-proof rooms.

By building custom audiences, hoteliers can use data collected from various sources to deliver more effective, targeted marketing to guests likely to be interested in their wellness offerings. This valuable insight also provides opportunities for hoteliers to upsell other relevant experiences such as spa treatments, gym programmes and healthy F&B options.

Hyper-personalisation to deliver outstanding experiences

This hyper-personalisation enables hoteliers to identify guests with specialist sleep requirements, enabling them to provide outstanding service for guests by going the extra mile. Special sleep-focused touches could include meditation recordings, relaxing bath salts, heated blankets, white noise, sleep masks and herbal teas in rooms. These sleep-enhancers will keep guests happy and well-rested, whilst helping to boost those important repeat bookings.

Zonal’s multi-channel marketing suite can gather valuable information from guests post stay, enabling hoteliers to gauge how well their sleep strategies worked and make tweaks for the future.

In today’s fast-paced world, sleep seems more elusive than ever and with over 38% of Brits claiming not to get enough quality sleep to function well, it has never been more of a priority for rest-seeking travellers. Together with fitness and healthy food, sleep is set to be a top wellness travel trend in 2025 and beyond.

A good night’s sleep will be seen as an expected standard, not a luxury, as people embrace slowing down to prioritise their health. So, don’t ‘sleep’ on this trend, help your guests to feel rejuvenated with an active approach to great rest and feel the benefit of those extra bookings.

We would like to wish all of our Zonal Hotel Solutions customers a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

We know the festive season is a busy one for the hospitality industry, and we’re sending our warmest wishes to you over the coming weeks. We hope the Christmas period runs smoothly for your team, and you can enjoy some of your own time to relax and recoup after the festive rush!

Thank you for choosing Zonal Hotel Solutions as your PMS provider; we are proud to be providing so many hotels with the tools to streamline their operations, save time, cut costs and deliver the best possible customer service.

It’s been an extremely busy year here at Zonal, with the launch of many new features and the unveiling of our rebrand at the Independent Hotel Show back in October. The transition to Zonal Hotel Solutions reflects our unified vision and mission to provide innovative, comprehensive, and customer-centric technology solutions for the hotel industry.

We would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to all of our customers for your incredible support throughout this journey.

Here’s to a successful 2025!

Have a great one,
The Zonal Team

It’s no surprise that hospitality and tourism in the UK have taken one of the biggest hits in recent years, with the Covid pandemic thwarting travel plans for millions. However, after three years of disruption, VisitBritain predicts that the spending will increase to £32.5bn this year, improving on UK travel-spend for the first time since 2019. The organisation has also predicted a 5% increase in spending from inbound tourism compared to 2023.

Adding to this positive outlook for UK hoteliers, a Confused.com survey found that 57% of UK travellers have chosen or considered a staycation since the cost-of-living crisis began, rather than venturing abroad, again contributing to the growing UK room occupancy rates.

Business travel

The UK is reported to have the fourth highest spend on business travel in the world and this market has seen the most significant improvements this year, with the World Travel & Tourism Council projecting a 6.2% increase, compared to pre-pandemic levels. As in-person meetings and working from the office slowly become the norm again, corporate travel is set to ramp up even further.

What’s more, according to the latest Savills report, there has historically been ‘a close correlation between UK GDP, CFO confidence and regional hotel RevPAR’, meaning the projected economic growth in the UK will have an especially positive impact on corporate travel markets.

Hoteliers can anticipate this growth in business travel by ensuring their technology is up to scratch to maximise potential revenue.

Zonal’s booking software can help hoteliers manage meeting spaces, oversee F&B arrangements and coordinate group room bookings for corporate events. Hoteliers can ensure all bills are processed under a single guest or company, resulting in a slicker experience for businesses looking for excellent customer service.

The boom of ‘bleisure’ travel is set to be a top trend in 2025, with 74% of Brits travelling for business and leisure in one trip. This means that guests are looking for high-quality amenities to help them relax and unwind outside of their working hours. Hoteliers can upsell their spa, restaurant, gym and other facilities through effective and targeted communications using our marketing suite to further maximise profits.

Generation travel

Also leading the charge on the tourism revival is the Baby-Boomer generation. A 2024 report has found that leisure budgets have grown by 9% this year, primarily fuelled by over 50s, who also spend more on average per trip. In fact, Baby-Boomers make up a whooping 80% of all luxury travel and 99% take at least one leisure trip per year.

Hoteliers can capitalise on this with the use of ultra-personalised marketing, offers and packages aimed at the 50-60+ market and retirees. Remember, statistically, this age group are most likely to leave reviews and rely on other guests’ feedback to inform their decisions, so excellent service and guest experience is paramount. Encourage happy customers to leave reviews and book repeat stays with all-important personalised follow-up marketing communications.

Event-led travel

Taylor Swift’s Eras tour boosted London hotel bookings by a huge 173% this year and with Oasis set to pay 19 dates across the UK and Ireland next summer, some cities are already looking at over 73% occupancy for that period.

Yes, it’s clear that the return of huge music events post-covid will have a brilliant knock-on effect on the hotel industry.

With guests travelling from across the globe, it’s essential that hoteliers have easy-to-use booking software in place and full visibility on OTAs. Zonal’s PMS will ensure guests can book rooms easily and quickly for their music events and hoteliers are able to adjust rates based on these periods of high demand to maximise profits.

What’s more, Zonal’s PMS enables guests to upgrade their experience before arrival or at optimum points throughout their stay, with perfectly timed product and service alerts, discounts and offers. By offering guests personalised upsells, tailored to their preferences, hoteliers can boost their RevPAR by as much as 30%.

In summary

As the UK slowly edges its way towards financial recovery in 2025, investment in hotels is expected to grow and demand for travel is expected to strengthen even further. With the right technology in place, hotels can be ready for this period of expected growth and feel benefits of a more positive outlook for the hospitality industry.

2025 is just around the corner, and the hospitality industry is gearing up for a year of big financial changes.

October’s Budget will no doubt have an impact on hoteliers over the coming months; with both minimum wage and employer’s national insurance costs set to rise in April and business rate relief due to be reduced from 75% to 40%.

Alongside the usual winter dry spell as consumers penny pinch after Christmas and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, hotels will have to be savvier than ever to entice customers and keep rising costs down.

Fortunately, there are a plethora of ways to manage this uncertain economic climate, in particular, using technology to streamline your hotel’s operations and make significant time and cost savings.

Here, we explain how.

Boost direct bookings

2024 saw a huge change in the way people book their staycations, with mobile bookings overtaking desktop for the first time ever. With 51% of guests now booking hotels with their mobile phones, a fully optimised and responsive online booking system is essential for hoteliers to snap up those all-important direct bookings alongside OTAs to boost profits.

Zonal’s mobile-friendly, fully intuitive and customisable booking system is tailored to fit a hotel’s unique style and branding whilst working seamlessly regardless of the device a guest is making their booking from . Our portal allows guests to access all of their booking information including pre-orders and added extras to maximise profits even further, without taking commission.

Hotel revenue management

Staying ahead of the competition is key to maximising profits, so being able to anticipate demand for rooms and adjust rates accordingly will be essential for hoteliers in 2025.

Whether it’s a summer heatwave, a highly anticipated music event or a festival in the local area, with Zonal’s revenue management tools, hoteliers can ensure rooms and rates are adjusted appropriately to boost RevPAR.

For in-depth analysis of costs, our real-time reporting software can efficiently analyse past years’ performances to help accurately forecast sales, enabling hotel management to spend or cut costs accordingly throughout the year.

Reduce F&B costs

It’s well-known that food waste is a persistent problem within the hospitality industry, with restaurants and hotels reportedly spending a whopping £2.6 billion on food waste each year.

To enable hoteliers to tackle this, Zonal’s Purchase-to-Pay system alerts kitchen staff when stock is running low and gives real-time recommendations for re-ordering based on individual requirements, saving chefs precious time and streamlining kitchen operations. This process significantly reduces food waste and over-ordering, cutting costs and with an added bonus point for sustainability.

With costs rising across the board, our menu management tool can help you develop accurately costed menus and identify where potential savings could be made – whether it’s tweaking a recipe or exploring alternative suppliers.

Marketing

Getting the word out there to new and existing customers is essential for hoteliers to attract new trade and encourage repeat bookings. However, marketing collateral such as flyers and brochures can be costly and overlooked by large proportions of your target market – no one wants to receive a ‘one-size-fits-all’ marketing email anymore.

It’s been found that customers are 80% more likely to buy from businesses that offer personalised experiences. With this in mind, hyper-personalised emails, tailored to each individual’s experiences and interests, will help hotels develop deeper connections with customers past and present.

Using Zonal’s PMS, hoteliers can send targeted communications to guests to upsell services and extras pre-stay, gain valuable reviews and promote offers to encourage instant bookings.

In summary, despite the rocky forecast that has been predicted for the hospitality industry over the coming months, there is hope for a successful year ahead. Hotel occupancy has reached pre-covid levels for the first time this year and with a little help from a reliable, affordable and powerful PMS, hoteliers can make cuts where necessary, whilst still providing the best possible experience for their guests.