Artificial intelligence may dominate hospitality technology conversations today, but hotel executives say the industry’s biggest challenge is far less glamorous: getting its data in order.
During roundtable discussion—”How Data Powers the Future of Hotel Operations”—hosted by HOTELS Magazine and in partnership with Otelier, hotel operators, technology providers and brand representatives agreed that AI has enormous potential to improve hotel profitability, from revenue management and labor scheduling to food-and-beverage operations and asset planning. Yet, they repeatedly stressed that AI is only as effective as the quality and accessibility of the data behind it.
“We’ve probably got more data now than we’ve ever had,” said Nick Clark, SVP of operations, Remington Hospitality. The challenge, however, is no longer collecting information but distilling it into meaningful insights that operators can actually use to make decisions.
That sentiment set the tone for a discussion centered less on AI hype than on the practical work required before hotels can truly benefit from it. (The full video is embedded below.)
Data Before AI
Several panelists cautioned that many hospitality companies are eager to deploy AI before establishing reliable data foundations.
“I think AI is only as good as the data,” said Matthew Bright, SVP, head of IT, Davidson Hospitality Group, who argued that operators must first understand how their information is collected, maintained and governed before expecting artificial intelligence to generate meaningful insights. Simply layering AI on top of poor-quality data, the panel agreed, will not produce better business decisions.
Instead, executives see AI’s immediate value in making existing information more accessible by filtering through enormous volumes of operational data and highlighting patterns that would otherwise remain hidden.
Clark noted that AI can combine guest reviews, service calls, maintenance issues and operational records to uncover relationships that individual departments might never identify on their own. Rather than replacing human judgment, the technology becomes a decision-support tool capable of surfacing previously overlooked insights.
Fragmented Systems: The Obstacle
Before hotels can fully capitalize on AI, panelists said they must address another persistent problem: disconnected technology systems.
Many properties continue operating with legacy property-management systems, separate departmental software and isolated databases that were never designed to communicate with one another. As a result, valuable information often remains trapped inside organizational silos.
According to Clark, technology providers increasingly find themselves extracting information from virtually any source available—from modern APIs to PDFs and text files—simply to build usable datasets. While newer systems are improving connectivity, the panel acknowledged that the industry’s fragmented technology ecosystem remains a major barrier to progress.
The discussion also highlighted uncertainty over who should ultimately lead digital transformation. While brands establish technology standards, owners typically fund investments, management companies operate the assets and software vendors develop the platforms, creating shared responsibility without a clear owner.
AI Next
Where executives do see near-term opportunity is operational optimization.
Revenue management emerged as one of the clearest use cases. Rather than manually evaluating pricing decisions every day, operators expect AI to monitor demand patterns, recommend pricing strategies and identify trends that human analysts may overlook, while revenue leaders continue overseeing broader commercial strategy.
Labor management represents another promising application. Panelists envisioned AI improving staffing forecasts by incorporating not only reservations but also demand signals that indicate future booking behavior before reservations materialize.
Beyond staffing, executives discussed how usage data from guestroom key systems could influence future hotel design by revealing how travelers actually use amenities such as fitness centers, lounges and public spaces. Those insights could eventually shape everything from building layouts to housekeeping schedules and facility investments.
The ‘Secret Sauce’
One of the discussion’s more candid moments centered on loyalty programs.
Panelists argued that hotel brands possess enormous amounts of guest data through their loyalty ecosystems, giving them a competitive advantage that independent operators and third-party management companies cannot easily access.
Several executives suggested that AI-powered personalization could dramatically improve guest experiences, but only if operators gain greater access to the behavioral information currently held within brand loyalty programs. Until then, that data remains one of the industry’s most closely guarded competitive assets.
F&B a Data Business
The conversation also highlighted how analytics is reshaping hotel food-and-beverage operations.
Rather than relying on intuition, operators increasingly use transaction-level data to optimize menus, purchasing decisions, kitchen workflows and labor deployment. One executive described using AI to benchmark procurement across multiple hotels by analyzing invoices and identifying purchasing inconsistencies, while another discussed integrating point-of-sale, kitchen display and inventory systems to improve menu engineering and reduce waste.
Executives also pointed to detailed restaurant analytics—including server performance, menu-item sales and guest purchasing behavior—as evidence that hospitality is becoming increasingly data-driven beyond guestrooms alone.
The opportunity ahead
Although enthusiasm surrounding AI remains high, the panel repeatedly returned to a common conclusion: the technology itself is no silver bullet.
For hotels, the greatest opportunity lies not in replacing people with artificial intelligence but in creating connected data environments that allow operators to make faster, more informed decisions. AI may ultimately transform hospitality, participants agreed, but only after the industry solves a challenge it has been discussing for more than a decade: making its data accessible, accurate and actionable.