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AI in hotels: guest enquiries and the cost
Short answer
Start AI in a hotel with the enquiries that do not fit a template: groups, meeting rooms, packages, several dates at once. Templates in your current sales channel often handle the arrival instructions. At Syntalith, automating reply drafts costs from €3,000 net. At 120 enquiries a month of 25 minutes each it pays back in 2.0 months, and reception still confirms prices and availability.
How we workDetails ↓
- 01Call30 minutes with an engineer, free
- 02PrototypeA working system on your process and data, free
- 03ImplementationTarget and fixed price in the contract; 50% at signing
- 04Acceptance50% once the agreed target is met
- analysis with an engineer and a free prototype
- €0
- team in ChatGPT or Claude, up to 10 people
- from €1,150
- automation, agent or application for one process
- from €3,000
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Syntalith · 3 min read
Statistics
AI in guest service: statistics 2026
2.0 mo.
payback of a €3,000 automation at 120 group and package enquiries a month: €1,745 by hand, €265 with checking and the model. Scenario.
15%
According to Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond (2025), customer support agents helped by AI resolved 15% more issues an hour on average, in a study of 5,172 people.
Source: Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, The Quarterly Journal of Economics (2025) ↗
47%
According to the European Commission (2026), customer service is the most common use of AI among EU SMEs and mid-caps that already use it: 47%.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 578 (2026) ↗
21.3%
According to Eurostat (2025), 21.3% of EU accommodation enterprises with at least 10 employees used AI.
Source: Eurostat, artificial intelligence by NACE activity (2025) ↗
90%
According to the European Commission (2026), 90% of companies using AI say that people take the decisions, and 2% of decisions are fully automated.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 578 (2026) ↗
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
Arrival instructions may already be handled
Booking.com describes message templates, a sending schedule and automatic replies. A template can use booking data, and editing it needs permissions. If reception retypes the same arrival instructions, check these features first.
Arrival instructions, check-in times
a template in the sales channel
€0
A question about the terms of one package
an assistant working from the hotel's offer
from €3,000
A group, a meeting room, a dinner, two dates
a reply draft with a list of gaps
from €3,000
Saving the booking in the hotel system
an integration, priced separately
after the analysis
A request for rooms and a meeting room needs several answers
A company asks for twelve rooms, a meeting room and a dinner, but gives two possible dates. The draft keeps both options and points out that the hours for the meeting room are missing. It does not pick a date and does not treat the room as available because guest rooms are free.
- 01RequirementsThe system lists the rooms, the meeting room, the meals and the dates from the message.
- 02GapsIt marks the missing hours, the number of people and special requirements.
- 03DraftIt prepares a reply with options from the current offer.
- 04ConfirmationReception checks availability and prices, then sends.
The system makes no commitment on behalf of the property. A note about an allergy goes to the kitchen as a question to confirm.
What AI for hotel enquiries costs and when it pays back
- Today
- 120 enquiries × 25 min = 50 h (€1,745)
- With the system, a person checks the output in 15% of the time
- €262
- Model, 2 calls per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- €2.98
- Cost of one case
- €14.54 today, €2.21 with the system
- Saving
- €1,480 a month
Payback of €3,000
2.0 months
The volume, the time and the checking share are the scenario's assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat. Model: 3,000 input tokens and 800 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
According to a study published in the QJE (2025), support agents helped by AI resolved 15% more issues an hour on average. In a hotel we count the time of the whole enquiry: gathering information, explanations and corrections.
What belongs in the budget
| Scope | Question for the supplier |
|---|---|
| Current templates | Which questions can the configuration of your existing tool handle |
| Gathering requirements | Where reception will see the gaps and the options |
| Sources of the offer | Who confirms the price, availability and terms |
| Reviewing replies | How to correct a draft and keep the approved version |
| Maintenance | What happens after a change of price list or tool |
Agree licences, the model cost and any connection to the hotel system separately. If employees already have an approved tool and want to prepare texts better, the first step can be training for reception.
Test what happens after the draft is ready
- A message that changes the number of rooms
- A guest's reply about only one of the dates
- A cancellation of part of the enquiry
- A change of price list after the draft is prepared
- A question about a package the hotel no longer offers
A reply generated quickly proves no improvement if the kitchen or reception later has to correct the promises. We discuss enquiry automation in hospitality on a description of the work alone, with no guest data. If the main problem is a shared inbox, compare inbox triage.
Worked example · Scenario
How we count the payback: hotel guest enquiries
We run the same count for your property in the free analysis.
€2,327
a month for preparing 100 group quotes
Payback: 1.5 mo.
40 minutes to prepare a group quote and checking in 15% of the old time are our assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat, for companies with 10 or more employees. Model cost: reading the enquiry in our quoting system (about €0.0008) plus pricing the lines (Claude Sonnet 5.5, about 4,000 + 1,500 tokens), at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026. The extra margin is a scenario: we assume 1 in 60 group enquiries handled the same day ends in a booking that a slow reply loses today, with a margin of €688. In the review we count it on your sales process.
See the full calculation →
