All cards are on the table. What's your pick?
All cards are on the table. What's your pick?
AI in luxury hotels is shifting how establishments approach the guest experience. In a world where every detail matters, personalised service remains the signature of prestige. However, technology is now entering this space once reserved for human interaction, redefining the standards of refinement and excellence.
For a long time, luxury hospitality stood out through the attention paid to each guest: a bespoke welcome, anticipated preferences, and a discreet yet memorable emotional connection. Now, artificial intelligence allows us to go even further: by analysing, learning, and predicting individual expectations, sometimes before they are even expressed.
This shift raises a vital question: how do we integrate AI to refine, rather than replace, the art of service? How do we combine the extreme personalisation made possible by data with the warmth of human service? And above all, how do we keep that feeling of exclusivity that defines the upmarket hotel sector? That is what we will explore in this article.
In the world of the luxury hotel, guest experience is not limited to a pleasant stay: it aims for wonder, the memory of a unique moment, and the ability to make the guest feel a sense of privilege. For a high-end establishment, it is not just about satisfying; it is about creating a memory that justifies the price, builds loyalty, and generates word-of-mouth.
This positioning is even more crucial as competition intensifies: the luxury hotel segment shows growth estimated at +6% per year until 2025. In this race, human service – the attention paid, the anticipation of expectations, the discretion – remains the major differentiating asset. According to this McKinsey & Company study, it is not so much the amenities that make the difference, but a “culture of excellence” where the team anticipates and exceeds expectations.
Unsurprisingly: guest loyalty rests on this quality of service and the capacity to create an emotional bond. One study mentions that among guests of hotel groups, those who feel an attachment to the brand do not book solely for price or location, but by choice, for the history and promise they recognise.
For a luxury hotel manager, this means:
In short: in luxury hospitality, guest experience is not an add-on: it is the foundation. Without it, investments in infrastructure or location are no longer enough to differentiate. And this is precisely where AI, which we will discuss, can play a strategic role – not to replace service, but to augment it.
Artificial intelligence is gradually establishing itself as a strategic lever for luxury hotels. Far from dehumanising service, it actually helps reinforce this promise of absolute personalisation, the bedrock of luxury hospitality.
Thanks to data and machine learning, establishments can now understand their guests’ preferences in depth: room type, lifestyle, spending habits, or even olfactory preferences. This fine-tuned knowledge makes a level of guest personalisation possible in luxury hotels that was previously unheard of, without increasing human interventions.
Concrete applications are multiplying:
In this augmented luxury hospitality landscape, AI becomes an invisible partner: it smooths operations, supports staff, and frees up time for the essential: human connection.
The real challenge of AI in luxury hospitality is not technical, it is cultural. Luxury relies on emotion, discreet presence, and the quality of contact. Automating service must never lead to erasing this human dimension; on the contrary, technology must reinforce it.
In a High Tech – High Touch approach, the best establishments use automation to free up time for their teams, not to replace them. An automated check-in smooths arrival; a concierge supported by AI like HiJiffy’s can answer requests faster while personalising recommendations further. The goal remains the same: offer more availability, more listening, and more precision.
For luxury hotels, this balance is even more crucial. A palace guest expects authentic human attention, but they also appreciate the fluidity of friction-free service. AI can then become the invisible ally of excellence: a tool for support, knowledge, and anticipation, at the service of humans, never in their place.
Integrating artificial intelligence into a luxury hotel does not mean digitalising at all costs. It is primarily about preserving the essence of service (warmth of contact, personalisation, consistency of experience) while optimising what can be optimised. Here are four essential levers to succeed in this transition:
Nestled on the heights of Plouider, La Butte embodies a model of integrated high-end hospitality: a hotel-spa, a Michelin-starred restaurant, and a Bib Gourmand bistro. This balance between gastronomy, well-being, and hospitality is part of its signature.
By relying on the HiJiffy solution, La Butte has enriched its guest experience without giving up its human dimension. Automating messaging and online bookings has allowed its teams to devote more time to advice, personalisation, and direct relationships. It resulted in a smoother communication, strengthened satisfaction, and service that is just as attentive – but now supported by technology:
Want to know more? Discover the full testimonial from La Butte.
For their part, the group Macdonald Hotels & Resorts (UK and Spain) deployed HiJiffy to handle more than 1,000 daily requests. Thanks to the complete automation of their communications:
Want to know more? Discover the full testimonial from Macdonald Hotels & Resorts.
These two examples demonstrate that, whatever the size or style of an establishment, AI applied to luxury hospitality can reinforce the service promise: fewer repetitive tasks, more availability, more personalisation.
They illustrate the evolution of contemporary luxury well: a luxury anchored in reality, attentive, capable of using AI not to dehumanise itself, but to refocus on what makes its value – the experience lived by each guest.
The future of luxury hospitality will not be played out between human and machine, but in their complementarity. The real change is already underway: the most forward-thinking hotels are moving from reactive service to predictive service, where data, AI, and voice enrich the guest experience without altering the emotion.
The augmented experience of luxury rests on a new promise: offering each guest constant, fluid, and personalised attention, before, during, and after their stay. Tomorrow, AI will allow us to anticipate stay preferences from previous interactions, automatically adjust in-room moods, or send contextualised messages at the right moment, via the right channel.
But this vision only has value if it stays true to what defines luxury: singularity, discretion, human relationships. In this context, solutions like HiJiffy play a central role: they allow you to leverage guest data, while preserving the privacy of personal information and the sensitivity of service.
The luxury hotels that succeed tomorrow will be those capable of reconciling artificial intelligence and emotional intelligence, creating experiences that are both friction-free and deeply human.
Because fundamentally, luxury has never been a question of technology, but of time and attention: the time we devote to understanding, anticipating, surprising. AI does not replace this attention, it makes it possible on a new scale.
Luxury hospitality is entering a new chapter: one where artificial intelligence becomes a partner in excellence. Used well, it does not distort the guest relationship, it makes it smoother, more consistent, fairer.
Hotels that succeed in this transition understand that automation and humanity do not oppose each other. AI takes charge of invisible complexity: repetitive tasks, data management, continuous responsiveness. Humans retain their essential role: embodying the brand, creating the bond, transmitting emotion.
It is in this balance that the luxury of tomorrow is built – an attentive, augmented, but always sincere luxury. And this is precisely where HiJiffy comes in: by helping establishments get the best out of AI while preserving their singularity.
Discover how HiJiffy can improve the guest relationship at your luxury hotel – explore our solution or book your personalised demo now!
AI allows luxury hotels to offer a more personalised and fluid guest experience. It analyses guest data to anticipate needs, automates repetitive exchanges, and supports teams in their daily tasks. Result: more responsive service and human attention refocused on moments with high emotional value.
No, in luxury, the human relationship remains essential. AI does not replace staff: it complements them. It manages practical aspects (bookings, instant answers, feedback analysis) so that teams can focus on welcoming, personalising, and creating emotions – the true heart of the upmarket hotel sector.
The most widespread applications include multilingual virtual assistants, smart room personalisation, guest review analysis, or automated communication via WhatsApp. Luxury establishments like La Butte and Macdonald Hotels & Resorts use the HiJiffy solution to smooth exchanges and reinforce guest satisfaction.
The key is to define a clear strategy: automate tasks without emotional value, preserve human interactions, and train staff in using new tools. By relying on solutions like HiJiffy, luxury hotels can deploy AI progressively and consistently with their DNA, while improving operational efficiency and guest experience.
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Funding:
This project received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Contract No. 782509.
