How Hilton came around to embracing AI, resort fee transparency ... and Paris Hilton

27.09.2023 - 17:49 / thepointsguy.com / Christopher Nassetta / Paris Hilton / Paris

Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta is known for being a growth and change agent at the hotel conglomerate.

Under his tenure, the company moved its headquarters from Beverly Hills, California, to just outside Washington, D.C. — a geographic switch timed alongside the company's "It's morning in America" wake-up call that took it from industry sleeper to growth juggernaut.

Brands across the entire price spectrum, from Waldorf Astoria and Conrad to Home2 Suites and Hampton, fueled expansion amid the company's repositioning in the hotel orbit. Today, Home2 Suites is the hotel brand with the largest development pipeline in the U.S., according to Lodging Econometrics.

But it's more than brand growth keeping Hilton going these days. Company leaders, like most in the global corporate landscape, are weighing how to utilize artificial intelligence, fee transparency and other unique-to-Hilton features — a businesswoman and pop culture icon known for making "That's hot" the phrase of the early aughts, perhaps? — to their advantage.

"I think we'll look back and say, 'It took some time, but it's pretty revolutionary, and a bunch of things are very different as a result,'" Nassetta said of AI this week at the Skift Global Forum in New York City.

Consider Hilton's approach to AI more of a steady ascent than a swift revolution.

Although Hilton has been using AI "in one form or another for many years," Nassetta indicated generative AI — offerings like ChatGPT that can generate text, images or other media — likely has less impact on travelers in the short term.

"In 10 or 20 years, it'll be revolutionary in a whole bunch of different ways, but I think it's going to take time from my personal experience with it," Nassetta said.

That still means there will eventually be a time when AI increasingly impacts how you stay at a Hilton hotel. Expect AI to amplify the usefulness of the digital concierge in travel, Nassetta said.

It's going to take a smart content strategy to get to the point where this digital concierge is smart enough to, say, know the exact right times to recommend the Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives to travelers planning a vacation.

Further, generative AI in travel will likely take the form of offering highly personalized experiences at a greater scale. The tool can explore guest preferences and complaints through the company's various data streams like messaging platforms and social media. It can then process that and know exactly how the arriving guest does or doesn't like to travel. That means generative AI can also quickly address any customer service complaints.

"We can respond to people's issues in the moment instead of how, historically, [we've been more] like, 'We're sorry, here's a bunch of Hilton Honors