I heard something like “only a third of nurses' time goes to treating patients, the rest is lost in admin”. I thought what does that look like for a hotel?
Thinking about staff buried in admin, reports, emails, and clunky tech tools that almost give you more to do - not less, instead of focusing on guests. It's not glamorous, and it’s a real budget killer.
So I looked at a typical set-up for a hotel, in terms of where the hours are put in, and how much of that work could be assumed to be “digital work” (admin, planning, reporting, communication, content creation, management sync, etc).
There are no real truths here, it all depends on hotel standard, number of restaurants, facilities etc.
But let's use the following assumed numbers for how much of the work is “digital” for now:
Sales, Marketing & Admin | 90% |
Support/Other | 100% |
Management & HR | 80% |
Reservations & Revenue Mgmt | 95% |
Front Desk | 30% |
Food & Beverage | 10% |
Housekeeping | 5% |
Maintenance | 10% |
Combining these number with typical staff allocation, we conclude that:
• Up to a third of hotel work hours go to digital tasks.
...And including the fact that digital work often comes with a higher pay-grade (managers etc) this gives us that Nearly half of salary costs are sunk into roles guests never directly experience.
To put that into real money, for a hotel turning over 100 MSEK annually, up to 15 MSEK goes to digital-heavy tasks. That’s a lot of money not making rooms sparkle or delighting guests at the front desk.
But then you say:
"...these hours are what brings guests to the hotels (sales, marketing etc.)"
"They make sure we get our salary (HR)"
"That’s how we do our reporting (shift reports, follow-ups, budgeting etc)"
Absolutely, and these tasks bring a lot of value, and they still need to be done.
But are we doing it in an effective way? Are humans really the most efficient and quality controlled way of doing these tasks?
Enter AI agents
I get it, AI at this level sounds futuristic, maybe even threatening. AI couldn't do all these tasks on its own, right?
No not at 100%, and not quite yet. We're months (maybe quarters) away!
But we're easily at a 20% potential today, and give it 1-2 years - progressive hotels can take a serious look a those 50-70% savings.
But AI agents are not here to replace all people; it’s here to optimise the tedious stuff. Imagine automating tasks like guest messaging (and upsell!), marketing content and campaigns, payroll & scheduling etc. Let’s break this down into real savings.
If a hotel spends 35 MSEK on salaries:
• Automating just 20% of digital tasks saves over 3 million SEK.
• Push that to 50%, and you’re looking at 7.8 million.
• Going all in and hit 70%? that’s 11 million SEK in savings.
The biggest wins come from Sales, Marketing, Admin—basically roles loaded with spreadsheets and manual processes.
What AI agents could actually do
If it's digital, and somewhat repetitive. I say an AI-Agent will be able to do it whatever the task (or at least help out), by the end of 2025. But the extent of this all comes down to how you structure your processes, your digital assets, and your tech stack.
Create content and launch a marketing campaign? - Yes.
Interact with all guests and be the best concierge they ever had? - Yes.
Prepare a data-driven based agenda for next months Executive meeting - Yes.
And so on.
Where do the savings go?
The exciting part of this is that the money saved can actually improve the guest experience.
More frontline staff, faster room service, better amenities, personalised offerings, you name it.
Managers get to strategize instead of babysitting spreadsheets.
Front-desk agents become actual guest experience pros.
The bottom line
AI agents aren’t the villain, they’re the upgrade. They don’t necessarily steal jobs just because they automate tasks. They give staff the time to shine where it counts.
The future of hospitality isn’t just faster or leaner—it’s smarter, and way more focused on what guests actually care about.
If you’re not looking into AI yet, you’re leaving both money and opportunities on the table. And let’s face it—no one wants that.
Want to learn more about AI-Agents in Hotels?
Sign up for our January webinar https://www.lucyanalytics.com/webinar-aiagents
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