It's an exciting time to be in the hotel tech game.
Automation is flourishing. AI is making waves. And integrations are opening up more and more possibilities for hotels to wow their guests.
With innovation moving at lightning speed, we sat down with our CPO and Co-Founder, Aljaž Ketiš, to get his insights on where hotel tech is heading—and how properties can zero in on the right tech for their business needs.
You co-founded Flexkeeping almost 10 years ago. What has been the biggest change in the industry since then?
When we started 10 years ago, our biggest challenge was convincing hoteliers that technology was actually going to help them. They were reluctant. We weren’t just selling the benefits of the system, but also persuading them that the staff would be capable of using smartphones. Many hoteliers had the mindset of, well, we’ve been doing this for the last however many decades. Things are a bit broken, but we’re fine. Why change anything?
Then COVID happened. It was a pivotal mindset shift for hoteliers. They didn’t have enough staff. They needed more data. They needed to operate more efficiently. And it's really hard to do that without the help of technology.
Now that hoteliers have identified the need for tools like Flexkeeping, they’re searching for what best fits their business needs. We can focus on how the tool solves their problems, instead of convincing them that it can in the first place.
Automation has quickly become essential for efficient hotel operations. What challenges do hotels face when adopting automation, and how can they overcome them?
I think the first part is that hoteliers don’t necessarily know the capabilities of technology. They don’t know what they can optimize or automate. The other challenge is they might not trust that automation is going to work. When you introduce automation to a task that used to take someone one hour each night to complete, it’s natural that hoteliers might be a bit reluctant to trust it.
The first step to overcoming these challenges is for hoteliers to research what’s available on the market. Get a baseline understanding of what’s possible.
The next step is to test. If you don’t fully trust the technology, test it on the lowest-impact task in your workflow. If it doesn’t work, no harm done. If it does, you can start automating more and more until your operations are fully optimized.
In your opinion, what is the greatest value that automation brings to the industry?
Personal touches are so important in hospitality. Human-to-human interaction is valued now more than ever. By automating processes, we are freeing up time for frontliners to actually interact with the guests.
If the team member at reception doesn’t have to deal with a complicated check-in process, they can have more meaningful conversations with the guests and find ways to make their stay more memorable.
This trickles down to the operations. Automation ensures tasks are communicated to the right person and delivered correctly. And if a housekeeping manager doesn’t have to manually write down their team’s tasks each morning, they can spend more time making sure the rooms are prepared for guests.
Not only does the guest get the VIP treatment at check-in, but they arrive to find everything they requested already in their room.
AI is following on the heels of automation as a powerful investment for hotel groups. What makes AI such a transformative tool for hotel teams, and what are some capabilities it has that executives may not be aware of?
AI is only at stage one. It’s sort of like where the internet used to be with dial-up. Remember when you couldn’t go on the internet because your mother was expecting an important call?
It's the same with AI. We’ve been using AI to rewrite text and compose basic content. But now we’re seeing companies like OpenAI releasing full-blown AI agents. Say you’re building a hotel. You’ll need a team of 50 to 100 people—engineers, construction teams, project managers, accountants—to make it happen. But if an AI agent can manage the bulk of the planning, you could get the same job done with only 5 to 10 people.
That’s just one example. But I think it’ll have the same effect in hospitality. Imagine an AI agent that researches every guest and provides the front office manager with a detailed breakdown of the guests checking in that day and their preferences.
There are so many unknowns to be discovered. To be honest, we can’t even imagine where AI will go. But in its current state, it already brings a lot of value and transformation to operational processes. Not necessarily to replace humans, but to empower them.
What do properties need to consider when integrating AI into their operations?
You need to know what challenges you're trying to solve. If it’s more efficient to solve the problem with AI or LLMs, then use it. But you need to start with the problem.
For example, about six years ago, I noticed a major friction point for hotel teams in gathering feedback. The times when guests are most likely to give feedback are also the times when staff are too busy to write it down. Like in the middle of a busy dinner service. I had the idea to build a voice input solution that allowed staff to simply speak into their device and log the feedback on-the-go.
We had the proof of concept, but the tech wasn’t ready back then. It wouldn’t be accurate or fast enough. Six years later, AI is at a point where the solution finally makes sense. We launched Flexkeeping Assistant last year, and now our clients use the tool regularly to generate tasks using only their voice. It’s the most efficient way to solve a real problem for them.
So again, it all comes down to: does AI make sense for your operations? Is it the best fix for your problem? If yes, use it. If not, maybe another automation or even a manual process will work better.
Flexkeeping is laser-focused on personalization as the future of hospitality. How has the product innovated to help hotel teams not just anticipate guest needs, but completely exceed their expectations?
The best example is Automated Services, a solution we launched this year that allows all types of hotels to achieve a high level of personalization.
Take an ultra-luxury hotel, for example. They typically have a guest relations manager who studies guest profiles to understand their preferences and deliver on them. But that requires a lot of manual labour.
With Automated Services, any type of property can segment guests and treat them based on the segment. You can even go beyond that and narrow in on the individual guest. I recently set up an automation for a client with a regular who always requested an ironing board during their stay. Now, anytime that regular checks in, the ironing board is already in their room.
It’s such a low-effort task, but a high-value experience for the guest. Someone took note of their preference and anticipated their needs, without them even asking for it.
This is where frontline workers, like housekeepers, can be an integral part of the personalization process. Say you have a housekeeper who always works the eighth floor, and a guest who regularly stays on that floor asks for extra towels. The housekeeper can tell management to create an automation. So when the guest comes in next, they arrive to find extra towels already in their room. It’s such a simple way to drive up brand loyalty. The guest will be totally amazed that the hotel did that for them.
Seamless integration is top-of-mind as hotel groups continue to optimize their tech stacks. How can different products work together to support key KPIs, like revenue growth and efficiency?
In my opinion, seamless integration should be a de facto standard, especially when it comes to PMS software. The PMS is the central system, and additional technologies need to build around it. That’s the first thing hotels should be looking for when building their tech stacks.
It’s also important for hotels to understand their needs from a holistic perspective. Not just the efficiency issues or just the guest issues. They should ask: what tech is going to support the whole journey, from the operational team to the guest experience? This is where integration can make a big impact on core KPIs.
An awesome example is the Oaky, Mews, Flexkeeping integration. Mews manages the reservation. Then Oaky upsells, let’s say, a romantic package. This upsell generates a Mews Product, which Flexkeeping instantly picks up and turns into a chain of automations for the guest’s arrival. If the reservation or package changes, those updates will be instantly reflected in Flexkeeping to make sure the service is delivered correctly.
So on one hand, you create extra revenue. And on the other hand, you actually deliver it, because you have everything automated. Without seamless integration, this journey can go wrong on basically every level.
Imagine it’s 2030. What is the state of hotel tech?
I’d say it’s a mixture of automations, robots, and humans working together to free up time and put more emphasis on personal touches.
To be practical, I believe that Tesla's Optimus robots, or similar robotics, are going to make way in the next five years. They’ll play a role in the back offices—doing laundry, folding sheets, vacuuming floors. Essentially helping humans, so that humans can be more productive with their time.
I think this is another area where progress is exponential. Five years ago, you wouldn't have imagined that a robot could pick something up with precision. Now it’s possible. And I think the merging of AI and robotics makes the possibilities even more infinite.
This is where Flexkeeping is going to play a crucial role. There has to be a medium—a platform where those two worlds meet. Where AI and robotics can function effectively to benefit the hotel, the staff, and the guests. Flexkeeping is that world.
So does Flexkeeping have plans to develop its own robot?
Never say never.
