Managing guest requests across multiple channels can slow service and strain hotel operations. Radisson Hotels introduced AI-powered customer service tools to automate repetitive inquiries and improve response efficiency. By combining automation with human support, the company delivered faster assistance without compromising the guest experience.
Overview
Radisson Hotel Group deployed two separate AI systems, years apart, to improve guest communication, meetings, and event sales. An AI chatbot resolved more than 80% of routine guest requests, while AI-powered sales agents reduced proposal turnaround time by 59% and increased response rates. Both initiatives demonstrate how focused AI deployments can deliver measurable operational improvements without replacing human decision-making.
A hotel can lose a guest in minutes, not for a poor room, but because no one answered a simple question quickly enough. In hospitality, how fast you respond shapes what guests think of their stay, even before the actual service does. Radisson Hotel Group ran into this problem in two different parts of its business, years apart. Each time, it deployed a separate AI system designed for that specific problem rather than relying on a single platform for every workflow. Viewed together, both cases teach the same lesson: AI works best when it’s aimed at one clear problem, not spread thin across many.
How Radisson Hotels Automated Guest Communication with AI
Radisson had worked with ReviewPro, now part of Shiji Group, since 2017 on guest experience tools. In 2019, the partnership aimed at a specific problem: routine guest questions arriving nonstop through digital channels—check-in times, WiFi access, and restaurant hours. None of these requests required human judgment, but all of them required a fast response.
How the Radisson Hotels AI Chatbot Improved Guest Response Times
ReviewPro added the AI chatbot to its Guest Experience Automation platform to handle routine guest questions. By the end of March 2020, the chatbot was resolving more than 80% of incoming guest requests without any staff involvement, at any hour of the day. Front desk teams no longer needed to spend hours answering the same questions repeatedly. Instead, they could focus on guests who actually needed personal attention, while the chatbot handled common requests instantly. This became one of the clearest and best-documented outcomes of Radisson’s AI initiatives.
How AI Improved Meetings and Event Sales at Radisson Hotels
Once guest communication was in better shape, Radisson turned its attention to a different challenge, this time in meetings and event sales. Event planners typically send requests for proposals (RFPs) to several hotels at once and tend to choose the one that responds first with a complete proposal. Radisson found that putting a proposal together took an average of 81 minutes after an RFP was opened, and the full response process averaged 48 hours. Since same-day proposals converted at rates of 25% to 27%, every extra hour of delay chipped away at the odds of winning the business.
How hivr.ai Automated RFP Responses for Radisson Hotel Group
Starting in 2022, Radisson partnered with hivr.ai and EY to rebuild this process. Two tools did most of the work. An AI email agent named Alex reads incoming RFPs and extracts the key details automatically. A voice agent named Mandy handles inbound and outbound calls around the clock, in more than 50 languages. From late 2022 through September 2023, the results were sizable: lead-to-quote conversion rose 80%, response rate more than doubled (up 125%), and proposal turnaround dropped 59%. These results came from Radisson’s business-to-business sales process for event planners and corporate clients—they do not measure guest-facing response times, making the distinction important when evaluating the company’s AI initiatives.
What Radisson’s AI Strategy Gets Right
Radisson never rolled out one sweeping AI platform. It built two narrow tools, each focused on a single measurable bottleneck, with a gap of approximately three years between them. Neither replaced people. The chatbots, Alex and Mandy, left contract terms and relationship management to sales teams. In both cases, AI absorbed repetitive first-contact work, and people handled what came after. Hotels considering similar moves would do well to start narrow: pick the single highest-volume, lowest-complexity task in the pipeline, whether that is guest FAQs or RFP intake, and measure response time before committing to a wider rollout.
Final Thoughts
Radisson’s two projects show a smart way to bring in AI. Instead of trying to overhaul everything at once, the company picked specific problems it could actually measure. Each AI tool solved a different issue and showed real results. And the decisions that need a human touch—judgment calls, relationships, and experience—stayed with the people.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How did Radisson Hotels use AI to reduce guest response times? Radisson Hotels implemented AI-powered chatbots, intelligent guest messaging, and automation to handle routine inquiries instantly, enabling faster responses while allowing hotel staff to focus on more complex guest requests.
- What types of guest requests can AI handle in hotels? AI can efficiently manage common requests such as booking inquiries, check-in and check-out information, room service questions, amenity details, reservation modifications, and frequently asked questions before escalating complex issues to staff.
- Did AI replace hotel staff at Radisson Hotels? No. AI was introduced to automate repetitive guest interactions and improve response speed, while hotel employees continued to handle personalized assistance, special requests, and situations requiring human judgment.
- What business benefits did Radisson Hotels gain from AI-powered guest service? Beyond reducing response times, AI helped improve operational efficiency, streamline guest communication, reduce staff workload, deliver more consistent service, and enhance the overall guest experience.
- What can other hotel brands learn from Radisson Hotels’ AI strategy? Hotels can start by automating high-volume, routine guest interactions, integrating AI with guest data for personalized responses, and maintaining a human-in-the-loop approach for complex or sensitive service requests.
