Hotels have traditionally relied on in-person service and established routines, but digital tools are changing how some properties operate. At the Hey Lou Hotel in Monheim am Rhein, founder Martin Kemmer says 90% of processes are automated. The hotel has no staffed reception desk: guests check in and out at terminals, and can use their phones to access the building.
The shift is being driven in part by labor shortages and pressure on profit margins. Moritz Dietl, managing director of consulting firm Treugast, says inflation, rent adjustments and wage agreements have squeezed hotel earnings, making automation increasingly necessary. Yet digital adoption remains uneven. A survey by Swiss university HES-SO Valais-Wallis found that more than two-thirds of hotel operators expected AI to become important within two years, while a separate survey of 100 operators found they rated their current digitization at 3.4 out of five. Digital tools are most common in booking; fewer than half of respondents had digitized internal communication or offered self-check-in.
Hotels are taking different approaches. At Berlin’s Hotel Oderberger, a Cloud-based property management system links departments and alerts staff when a guest checks out so a room can be prepared for cleaning. The system also allowed employees to check guests in and out using mobile phones during an outage that cut both internet and power at the property. Hotel manager Tini Diekmann says the aim is to reduce routine work and give staff more time with guests. She plans to introduce no more than two new tools a year so employees and visitors are not overwhelmed.
The system can also store guest preferences and connect feedback from earlier surveys to later bookings, provided guests have supplied their full names. A survey cited in the report found that 53.6% of respondents wanted contactless check-in and check-out as well as Voice control for room features such as lighting and curtains. More than one in ten considered facial recognition a must-have technology.
At Hey Lou’s Monheim property, Kemmer says seven employees manage 178 rooms, with day-to-day processes coordinated through a central app. Instructions often use images rather than long written explanations, which he says helps staff understand tasks and overcome language barriers. Sensors on bed linen can indicate whether it has been used, allowing staff to avoid washing unused sheets. The hotel’s location was also selected using software-based analysis, which identified business travelers and visitors from the Netherlands as potential customer groups.
Other operators are also adopting digital-first models. Koncept Hotels, based in Leverkusen, runs five hotels, while Berlin-based Stayery operates hotel and apartment rooms in ten German cities. The Finnish-Estonian group Bob W, which acquired Charity Hotels in 2023, has a presence in six German cities. Its software brings together bookings, mobile access, billing and guest support through an app and chatbots.
Despite the reduced reliance on traditional reception services, Diekmann and Kemmer say personal contact remains important. They argue that automating routine tasks can give employees more time to interact with guests. Dietl expects hotel concepts to become more differentiated, with guests paying more for greater levels of personal service.
Sources: Handelsblatt.