Are you aware that in the last 30 days, ChatGPT was used by approximately 1.8 billion people? And are you aware by the time you read this, that information will probably be out of date since more and more people are using AI tools?
While some people are afraid that AI-powered tools will affect hundreds of millions of jobs, they come with undeniable benefits. If you’re a part of the hotel industry and you need to refine your marketing strategy, an AI tool like ChatGPT can be a game-changer.
Let’s talk about how AI marketing tools can help you come up with a solid hotel marketing strategy, help boost direct bookings, and take your revenue to new heights.
Everything Hotel Owners Need to Know About ChatGPT
For more than a decade, at this point, the world of online marketing has been overrun with content farms producing huge volumes of low-quality content. At the height of their “popularity,” these content marketing farms were making more than 100 million, pumping out badly-written generic content. But thanks to a little AI tool, all this might be changing.
You’ve definitely heard about ChatGPT. Everyone and their mom has been using it for social posts, online marketing, and even just asking it to make silly requests like writing made-up cooking recipes. But what do you really know about Artificial Intelligence? Let’s take a look at the technology and see how it really works.
What is Natural Language Processing (NLP)?
At the heart of ChatGPT is Natural Language Processing (NLP). It’s the branch of computer science, more specifically Artificial Intelligence, which enables computers to understand and interpret human language. With NLP, ChatGPT can:
- Comprehend text inputs
- Analyze and extract meaning
- Generate relevant and coherent responses
NLP allows hotel industry professionals to tweak their marketing strategies and have a language expert at their disposal at all times. That’s why the NLP market is expected to grow to staggering $341 billion by the end of the decade.
What is Generative AI?
Generative AI is the driving force behind ChatGPT. The technology empowers AI models to generate new and original content based on previously-learned patterns and examples. Through the power of Generative AI, ChatGPT is able to give users content that goes far beyond simple, rule-based responses.
ChatGPT is far from the first AI chatbot. In fact, ELIZA, the first chatbot, was created by MIT way back in 1994. But early chatbots were much more primitive. Generative AI allows modern chatbots to create text that mimics human-like conversation. ChatGPT works as a virtual assistant, capable of generating ideas and producing content on demand.
What is ChatGPT?
Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a state-of-the-art language model that uses both NLP and Generative AI technologies to generate content for users.
With extensive training on large volumes of data, ChatGPT absorbs actual knowledge from various sources around the Internet. ChatGPT is designed to:
- Engage with users in interactive conversations
- Provide intelligent and context-aware responses
- Create fully-optimized content for your website and social platforms
ChatGPT was used by more than 1 million people in the first 5 days of launch. Furthermore, the platform grew by 9,900% in just 60 days, setting the record for the fastest-growing platform in the history of the Internet.
How to Use ChatGPT?
Whether you want to use ChatGPT for your marketing efforts or you simply want to write a quick email, using the actual platform is a breeze.
Here’s how to use ChatGPT for hotel marketing strategies in four steps:
- Step 1: Create an account on the OpenAI platform. Visit the ChatGPT website and proceed with the sign-up process.
- Step 2: Click on “Sign up” to create your account. It’s important to note that you might encounter a capacity error, which is a common occurrence. If that happens, simply refresh the page.
- Step 3: If you choose to sign up via email, OpenAI will send a verification email to your inbox. Follow the provided link to complete the verification process.
- Step 4: You can use ChatGPT now. Simply type your question or input into the search bar. The more specific information and details you provide, the more tailored the response from the AI bot will be.
As a marketer, you can leverage ChatGPT through its user-friendly interface or by integrating it into your existing systems.
Is it OK to Use AI in Marketing?
While you CAN use ChatGPT for your hotel marketing efforts, it doesn’t mean you SHOULD use it, right? So is there anything particularly wrong with it? Every now and then, you see people questioning the ethics of using AI for marketing purposes.
In our opinion, there’s nothing actually wrong with using ChatGPT for hotel marketing strategies. Artificial Intelligence is a tool. It boosts human capabilities and helps you achieve better results with more efficiency.
What is AI actually good at? There are two primary applications for ChatGPT in your marketing strategies:
- Automating tasks
- Analyzing large data sets
While this may seem limited, you can use AI marketing tools to enhance everything from analyzing customer data to writing and automating social media posts.
And it’s no longer about whether or not you should use AI marketing tools. It’s about when you’ll start using them. Since more than 80% of marketers – including those in the hotel industry – use at least one AI tool, if you want to stay competitive, you need to use one as well.
How Will AI Marketing Impact Hotel Websites?
AI marketing holds immense potential for hotel websites. ChatGPT can help you enhance hotel website content, personalize email marketing campaigns, and personalize customer interactions.
Artificial Intelligence can change everything from the booking process to content marketing. Here are a few things you can expect from ChatGPT:
- Personalized Experiences: Your potential customers want their experience with hotels and online travel agencies to be as personalized as possible If you want, you can add a ChatGPT widget to your hotel website and pre-qualify your leads with the latest AI technology.
- Smart Pricing Strategies: AI algorithms can analyze various factors such as demand, seasonality, competitor prices, and customer preferences to optimize pricing strategies. With the help of ChatGPT, hotel marketers can dynamically adjust room rates based on real-time data, maximizing revenue and occupancy rates.
- Content Personalization: AI can analyze user behavior, preferences, and historical data to deliver personalized content on hotel websites. ChatGPT can play a crucial role in this by generating tailored recommendations, suggesting relevant blog articles, or even personalizing the website layout based on individual visitor preferences.
Pros and Cons of ChatGPT and AI Marketing
No technology is perfect. AI marketing tools and chatbots are no different. Let’s explore some of the biggest advantages and disadvantages of using ChatGPT for hotel marketing strategies.
Pro: Writing Speed and Quality
ChatGPT accelerates the content creation process, allowing you to produce high-quality text efficiently. Some 54% of companies employing AI say their productivity has increased since they started using it. The tool saves you time and resources, enabling you to deliver engaging content to your audience.
Con: Outdated Knowledge Base
Although ChatGPT generates impressive responses, it relies on pre-existing data. The tool’s knowledge cutoff date is September 2021. While the writing may improve, ChatGPT’s knowledge will remain limited for the foreseeable future. It’s crucial to validate any information generated by ChatGPT with current sources to ensure accuracy.
Pro: Saving Marketing Budget
Nearly half of the businesses – 44% of them, exactly – using AI solutions like ChatGPT report decreased operational costs. By automating certain tasks, you can allocate your digital marketing budget more efficiently, focusing on high-impact initiatives that drive results. AI empowers you to do more with less, maximizing your resources and achieving a higher return on investment.
Con: Factually Inaccurate Answers
While ChatGPT excels at generating responses, occasional factual inaccuracies are possible. It’s important to exercise caution and verify the accuracy of the generated content before publishing or sharing it with your audience.
Pro: More Control Over Marketing Strategy
With ChatGPT as your trusted AI companion, you gain greater control over your marketing strategy. You can leverage the tool’s capabilities to refine your guest messaging, personalize customer interactions, and align your marketing efforts with your overall business goals. AI empowers you to make data-driven decisions, ensuring that your marketing strategy is effective and efficient.
Cons: Writing Inconsistencies
As an AI-powered tool, ChatGPT’s responses may occasionally exhibit inconsistencies in writing style or tone. It’s essential to review and edit the generated content to ensure consistency and alignment with your brand voice.
10 Ways to Use ChatGPT for Hotel Marketing Campaigns
Now that we have explored the fundamentals of ChatGPT and the benefits of AI in marketing let’s dive into the five key ways you can leverage ChatGPT to elevate your hotel marketing campaigns:
1. Idea Generation
Creative blocks are unavoidable. When forming your hotel marketing strategy, you’ll surely run out of ideas at a certain point. But don’t sweat it. You have ChatGPT, your virtual brainstorming partner, to ignite creativity and spark fresh ideas for your hotel marketing campaign.
Do you need a blog post that will captivate your target audience? ChatGPT can do it. Or perhaps you need a copy for your influencer marketing campaign? It can do that, too. Even if you need to refine your marketing plan based to rank higher in search engine results, ChatGPT can do that too.
But besides writing, the tool can now do much more, thanks to recent advancements.
With GPT-4, the newest version of OpenAI’s language processing system, you can take simple rudimentary ideas and turn them into reality in a matter of seconds. Do you know that you can turn hand-drawn sketches into functional web pages with just a few clicks? Well, now you know.
2. Content Creation
Whether it’s writing ads for paid advertising platforms or making short clips as a part of your video marketing strategy, content creation needs to be executed perfectly if you want it to really resonate with your target audience.
But that’s easier said than done. Do you know that between 60% and 90% of companies have trouble executing a strategic marketing plan? But with some help from ChatGPT, not only can you come up with an effective digital marketing plan, but you can also execute it.
By feeding relevant information about the hotel, local businesses, attractions, and events, ChatGPT can help you come up with content that will attract customers.
For instance, you can use the tool to generate a blog post about the top tourist destinations in your city or provide a comprehensive guide on local cuisine.
3. Social Media Strategy
Users spend hours upon hours on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook each day. These visits result in petabytes upon petabytes of data. Your customers and potential guests leave a lot of information for you to use.
The only problem is you don’t have enough time or manpower to go through all of the social media data. That’s what ChatGPT can help you with it. Unlocking the power of personalized customer experiences, ChatGPT delves into customer data to offer tailored recommendations.
What’s the job of your social media platforms? To navigate more people to your website. AI allows you to segment data, easily analyze it, and turn it into valuable insights using predictive analytics.
With ChatGPT, you can attract more people to your website, steer organic traffic, and of course, drive direct bookings.
4. Customer Relationship Management
When it comes to the booking process, you’d be surprised how many hotels – both large and small – use outdated booking systems.
Your guests won’t want to go to their email and write a few paragraphs each time they wish to book a hotel room. That’s no way to improve customer experience.
Luckily, ChatGPT allows easy and personalized communication with customers, answering their questions, suggesting nearby attractions, and helping with reservations. Using ChatGPT for customer service, you can quickly and accurately respond to guests, making them happier and more loyal.
ChatGPT has a positive impact on different parts of hotel marketing, especially customer service. Whether through website chatbots, messaging platforms, or support systems, ChatGPT makes your customer service faster and better.
5. Email Marketing Campaigns
Search engine optimization, social media marketing, advertising… All valid ways to handle hotel marketing. However, if you really want your hotel marketing efforts to pay off, you need email. For hotels, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways of influencing consumer behavior.
And the key to email marketing? Segmentation. According to new research, segmented campaigns lead to a 20% higher open rate, a 70% higher click-through rate (CTR), and 73% higher revenue per recipient compared to non-segmented campaigns.
Train your ChatGPT model using the collected data and segmentation criteria. That involves providing examples of subscribers belonging to different segments and their corresponding characteristics. By training the model on this data, ChatGPT learns to identify and classify subscribers into the appropriate segments.
6. Sourcing and Procurement
AI brings opportunities to the sourcing and procurement function of hotels. It helps uncover hidden insights from data, validate assumptions, and inform decisions.
In this article here, Deloitte outlines six key opportunities in this area, including:
- Spend classification
- Global sourcing insights
- Invoice data extraction
- Automated compliance monitoring
- Contract data extraction
- Contract lifecycle management.
These AI-powered solutions enhance compliance, analysis, risk assessment, efficiency, and partnership management.
With AI, hotel marketing professionals can improve tasks, data management, communication, and collaboration with suppliers, leading to more effective partnerships and streamlined operations.
7. Revenue Management
Machine learning advancements enable more accurate pricing analysis based on market demand, room availability, and individual customer preferences. Personalized pricing, already prominent in online retail, is gaining traction in brick-and-mortar stores.
Hotels make around five million pricing decisions each year. Revenue management systems (RMS) like Revenue AI handle this complexity and provide value, expanding beyond room pricing to areas like events, dining, and additional hotel services.
AI-powered revenue technology offers a holistic and strategic approach. It helps hotels understand demand, make better pricing decisions, evaluate group business opportunities, and plan staffing and services accordingly.
8. Attracting and Hiring Staff
Only around 40% of hotel owners believe that the technology we have today can make recruiting easier at their hotel. However, we’re here to tell you that these owners are wrong.
You can find workers through social media and hiring platforms. However, AI technology can help you go through the candidates and pick the ones that fit best with your team.
ChatGPT can generate compelling and informative job listings and descriptions to attract potential candidates. It can highlight the unique aspects of working at the hotel, such as the company culture, employee benefits, career growth opportunities, and the hotel’s commitment to guest satisfaction.
You can also use it for conducting pre-screening interviews, asking candidates a set of standardized questions, assign their qualifications.
9. Employee Training
Did you know that only 14% of hotels and motels in the hospitality industry offer more than 10 hours of training to their staff members?
Effective hotel marketing can take you so far. But if your employees aren’t properly trained to keep your guests happy, customer experience levels will drop quickly. Luckily, you can use ChatGPT for more than just social media and hotel marketing.
You can also use it to train your hotel staff. For instance, you can build a knowledge base using ChatGPT, which will contain important information and practices related to various hotel departments.
For instance, you can create modules on front desk operations, guest service protocols, and housekeeping procedures.
Moreover, you can use the tool to simulate role-playing scenarios to help staff practice their customer service skills. ChatGPT can play the role of a guest with different inquiries or challenges, allowing staff to practice their responses in a realistic setting.
10. Automating the Check-In Process
Lastly, you can use AI and machine learning to refine your check-in process. Just like your social media and marketing messages, you can make the check-in process more personalized.
While airlines have been at the forefront of automating and streamlining check-ins, hotels can also benefit from similar technologies.
For example, ChatGPT can be utilized as a virtual assistant during the check-in process. It can provide real-time responses to frequently asked questions, offer recommendations on local attractions, dining options, or hotel amenities, and address any concerns or special requests guests may have
With the check-in process streamlined, hotel staff can dedicate more time to delivering personalized service, attending to guest inquiries, and enhancing the overall guest experience.
Bonus: AI Marketing Tools You Should Know About
ChatGPT might be the most popular AI marketing tool, but it’s far from the only one out there. The AI marketing tools market is currently worth $550 million and is expected to surpass $2 billion before the end of the decade.
Below, you can find a couple of tools that will help you enhance your digital marketing strategy and rank your hotel website in mere months.
MARA: Let AI Respond to Guest Reviews
- Price: Paid plans start from $28 per month
- Best for: Reputation management, tracking consumer behavior
- How it works:
MARA Solutions is an AI reply review assistant that helps hotel businesses respond to online reviews. On average, it saves 4 minutes per answer, which results in significant time savings every month. In addition, it boosts response rates and overall star ratings for hotels of all sizes.
DialogShift: Communicate With Hotel Guests Instantly
- Price: Less than $3 per room per month
- Best for: Larger resorts and branded hotels looking for instant customer support
- How it works:
Let’s face it: hotel guests ask a lot of annoying, repetitive questions. But if you want to keep the guest experience at a high level, you need to answer every little question. That’s where DialogShift comes into play. The AI chatbot will fit seamlessly into your hotel website, provide your guests with instant guest answers, and drive direct bookings.
VOICEPlug: Machine Learning Phone System
- Price: Paid plans start at $24 per month
- Best for: Hotels that offer room service and restaurant reservations
- How it works:
If your hotel has an on-site restaurant or offers room service, you can increase customer engagement and sales with a fully automated voice ordering system. Enter VOICEPlug. The AI tool allows you to save up to 70% on labor costs by automating repetitive tasks, increase average check size b 15% with upselling, and 35% increase in customer lifetime value.
Allora: AI-Powered Booking Solution
- Price: Contact for pricing information
- Best for: Hotels looking to reduce cancellations of hotel rooms
- How it works:
Tired of having your hotel rooms canceled last minute? In that case, you need to know about Allora. Using AI, the tol will encourage guests to upgrade rooms, book additional services, and extend their stay. Allora has analyzed over 400 million guest interactions with hotel and resort websites. That allows your luxury or boutique hotel to personalize marketing messages and each step of the customer journey.
Viqal AI: Alerts Triggered by Guest Data
- Price: Contact for pricing information
- Best for: Hotel managers looking to enhance customer experience
- How it works:
Your current and potential customers create tons of data every day. Are you doing anything with all that data? No? Then you need to check out Viqal AI. The marketing tool enables managers to create advanced alert workflows triggered by certain data points. So when a customer performs a certain action, you can send them an automatic marketing message. Local businesses using Viqual report 70% fewer guest complaints and a 20% increase in upselling.
The Hotel Industry is Changing, and You Should Too
When it comes to AI in marketing, there are tons of tools that can help you create an effective hotel marketing strategy. Whatever your marketing goals might be, tools like ChatGPT may help you accomplish them faster. Brand language optimization, social media management, and search engine optimization can all use the help of ChatGPT.
As the world becomes more AI-driven, if you’re a member of the hospitality industry, you’d want to stay ahead of the curve at all times. With ChatGPT and other tools, you can improve hotel marketing, streamline the booking process, and increase overall direct bookings.
If you want your hotel marketing strategies to pay off, you also need a good communication tool. HelloShift is crucial for hotel marketing as it significantly impacts the overall guest experience and helps in building a strong hotel image.
Effective marketing strategy depends on good communication between guests and hotel employees. HelloShift serves as a valuable tool for achieving this goal.
HelloShift is a cloud-based digital hotel app —- guests can text hotel, checkin on their mobile device, scan and upload documents, digitally sign hotel registration cards, receive mobile keys, and have access to all hotel amenities through a guidebook that is customized with the hotel brand.
Go digital with Guest Messaging, Contactless Checkin, Website Chat, Staff Collaboration, Housekeeping Management and more.
