Customer Service Automation for Hotels
A hotel has three guest conversations, and they are different jobs. Before booking, the guest is comparing you with two other properties. Before arrival, they have logistics questions. During the stay, they are in the building and want something now. The first is sales, the second is administration, and the third is operations.
This page is for hotels, boutique properties and guesthouses. It starts with the six workflows worth automating first, each linked to its own page with a description you can paste into AeroChat. Then it covers the messages that arrive, the channels guests use, the public data, two recipes you can copy in today, and the plan a property of your size typically fits.
Workflows you can automate
Each one links to a page with the flow, the description to paste, what to connect and what you still decide. The reasons for this order are on the ranked hotel workflows page.
- Answer room and rate questions, then book the room. Reads availability and rates from your property management system and gives the cancellation policy for the rate being discussed.
- Take date and room change requests. Finds the booking in your property system, checks the rate’s terms and makes the change you allow.
- Sell early check-in, transfers and upgrades before arrival. Takes payment in the chat and adds the request to the booking.
- Answer facility and policy questions from your fact sheet. Breakfast, parking, pets, wifi and pool hours, in the guest’s language.
- Recommend places nearby from your own list. Only the places and directions you have written down.
- Send complaints and safety messages to the duty manager. Straight away, with the room number.
What automation does for a hotel
- More direct bookings. A guest who gets a specific answer about parking, breakfast or a connecting room on your own channel, at 1am in their own language, often books with you directly.
- Revenue from the pre-arrival window. Early check-in, airport transfers and upgrades can be offered when the guest raises the subject, and paid for in the chat.
- In-stay requests reach the right team. “No towels in 814” becomes a task for housekeeping with the room number, and the guest is told it is logged.
The messages a hotel gets
| Conversation | Typical messages | What the workflow does |
|---|---|---|
| Before booking | “any room 12 to 14 dec”, “is breakfast included”, “do you allow pets”, “how far from the train station” | Checks availability and rates in your property system and answers property facts from your fact sheet. Gives the cancellation policy for the specific rate being discussed |
| Before arrival | “can I check in early”, “airport transfer?”, “baby cot”, “arriving at 1am” | Adds the request to the booking, offers paid extras where you sell them, sends a payment link, notifies the front office |
| During the stay | “no towels”, “air conditioning not working”, “wifi password” | Answers what it can, and sends each request to the right department with the room number |
| Groups and events | “10 rooms for a wedding in march” | Collects dates, room nights, event needs and budget, and passes it to sales |
| Complaints, safety, security | “someone tried our door last night” | Hands to a person immediately |
The in-stay test is simple. A system that replies “I have passed this to housekeeping” without actually creating a task is worse than none, because the guest now believes it is handled. Every in-stay request needs a real notification to a real team, and complaints go to a person, because a guest who complains during the stay can still be won back. See live chat handover.
Channels guests use
Guests rarely install a hotel app for a two-night stay. They will message a number they already have. WhatsApp needs no installation, works for international guests on hotel wifi, and keeps one thread from the first question to checkout. Web chat on your booking page catches guests comparing properties. AeroChat replies in the guest’s language, including mixed languages, from your real property information. Online travel agency messages stay in their own systems, so make sure your team checks them alongside the AeroChat inbox. See shared inbox.
What the data says
| Figure | What it measured |
|---|---|
| 73.3% | of consumers prefer messaging when contacting a business |
| 69% | say waiting on hold is a waste of time |
Source: Meta, State of Business Messaging. Kantar survey of 11,056 adults in 22 markets, commissioned by Meta, which owns WhatsApp, 2025.
Guests who prefer to message will message the property that answers. A direct booking keeps the commission an online travel agency would take, and paid extras add to each stay, so these are the conversations where a hotel earns money. Guests arrive from many countries and write in many languages, which is why replies in the guest’s language belong in the setup.
Recipe: pre-arrival requests and paid extras
Paste this into AeroChat (Skills, then Build from a description) and change the example values to yours.
Copy this into AeroChat
When a guest with a booking asks about early check-in, late check-out, an airport transfer, a baby cot or a late arrival, follow these steps.
- Ask for their booking name and arrival date, and find the booking in our property management system.
- For early check-in, offer guaranteed check-in from 10am for US$50 (example price). For a transfer, offer a car from the airport for US$65 one way (example price) and ask for their flight number and arrival time. For an upgrade, offer a deluxe room at US$55 a night more (example price), subject to availability in our system for every night of the stay.
- If they accept a paid extra, confirm the item and amount and send a payment link.
- When it is paid, or for any free request such as a cot or a late arrival, add it to the booking in our system as a note, with whether it is paid. Confirm it to the guest, and notify the front office with the booking name, arrival date and the request.
Only promise what is on this list. If they ask for anything else, say the front office will confirm, and notify them. Reply in the guest’s language.
What to connect:
- Your extras list and property fact sheet. Uploaded to the AeroChat knowledge base.
- Your property management system. Cloudbeds, Mews or Oracle OPERA Cloud connect through their APIs. In Cloudbeds, create an API key in its settings. In Mews, approve the connection so Mews issues an access token. On OPERA Cloud, your team registers an application in Oracle’s Hospitality Integration Platform and shares its client ID and keys. Paste them in when AeroChat asks. AeroChat finds the booking there and adds each request to it.
- Payments. Airwallex is built in: connect your Airwallex account and AeroChat sends the payment link and confirms the payment. Money settles into your Airwallex balance, and AeroChat never sees card numbers. If you already take payments with HitPay or Stripe, both connect through their APIs with your API key. Payment links are included from the Growth plan.
- Your channels. WhatsApp and web chat. Built in.
Recipe: in-stay requests
Copy this into AeroChat
When a guest staying with us asks for something, ask for their room number if they have not given it, and check it against the in-house booking in our property management system. If it is information, such as the wifi password, breakfast hours or the pool opening time, answer from our fact sheet. If it is a request, sort it into housekeeping (towels, cleaning, amenities), maintenance (air conditioning, plumbing, lights, TV) or front office (everything else). Notify our team, naming that department, with the room number, the guest’s name and the request, then tell the guest which team has it and that they will be contacted. If the guest complains, mentions safety or security, or is unwell, apologise and hand the conversation to the duty manager straight away.
What to connect: your property fact sheet in the knowledge base, and your property management system for the guest name on each room. Each notification reaches your team in AeroChat and on the mobile app, with the department named in the message.
After you paste a recipe, AeroChat builds it as a draft with a checklist: connect your accounts, upload your lists, then switch it on. Any keys are entered in the dashboard and never pass through the conversation.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What a hotel of your size typically invests
AeroChat plans are priced on AI responses, the individual replies the AI sends. A pre-arrival request usually takes a few responses. A worked example: a 60-room hotel with about 20 guest conversations a day, at around four replies each, uses roughly 2,400 responses a month.
- A guesthouse or boutique property with a handful of messages a day usually fits Starter: 500 AI responses a month and 3 team seats.
- A small hotel selling extras in the chat needs Growth, because payment links start there. It includes 2,000 AI responses a month and 10 seats.
- A hotel at the volume in the example, or with many international guests, usually fits Advanced: 5,000 AI responses a month, 25 seats and auto-translation.
Peak months can be topped up with extra AI credit. What the investment does is answer the pre-booking question that decides between you and the next hotel, and sell the extras guests already ask about.
Start with the pre-arrival window
Upload your fact sheet and extras list, connect your property system, paste the pre-arrival recipe, and ask for an early check-in from your own phone. It is the quickest way to see whether your extras sell in the chat.
Related reading: payment link, live chat handover, shared inbox, WhatsApp chatbots for travel agencies. All hotel workflows. All industries.