SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO (May 2023): Conversational AI is one of the hottest concepts in hotel management. The notion of having a friendly auto-attendant answering frequently asked questions over the phone is no longer a fantasy – the technology is here and available to assist hotels to provide enhanced service for guests. A recent survey of more than 5,000 consumers and 600 hoteliers across nine global markets revealed that 73 percent of consumers want hotels to offer technology that minimizes contact with staff and other guests.
Curator Hotel & Resort Collection focuses on developing preferred vendor agreements with best-in-class service providers and innovative technology for the benefit of its members, which consists of independent hotels delivering unique travel experiences, in top and memorable destinations across the United States. Curator’s hotels are known for providing exceptional levels of service, so it is important to Curator to find the best AI technology to interact with its valued clientele.
Curator vetted multiple AI solutions and recognized an opportunity to incorporate the innovative technology into the Travel Outlook scope of services, helping lead the development of Annette, The Virtual Hotel Agent. Annette’s proprietary conversational AI understands how people actually speak, by using tools like movie dialog and Facebook for design and programming. The result is that Annette is better at understanding a guest request or question, removing one of the major objections with AI technology.
Annette's warm, human, and friendly AI-powered voice assistance creates an engaging, on-brand experience for valued hotel guests, accurately understanding the guest's request, even when they narrate or speak in long-winded sentences. Travel Outlook has built an internal team to program and manage Annette, ensuring that she is operating at the highest level of performance, conveying the latest and most accurate information during guest interactions.
John Smallwood, President of Travel Outlook said, "Annette can help to relieve call volume challenges at the front desk, providing guests with the information they are seeking, delivered instantly and with near 100% accuracy. Annette allows guests to lead the conversation with natural, human-like interactions, leaving the front desk team free to give guests visiting them in person their complete attention."
“Curator recognizes the growing opportunity with conversational AI to alleviate operational pain points, reduce support costs, and improve overall guest satisfaction,” said Austin Segal, Vice President of Curator Hotel & Resort Collection. “In Travel Outlook, Curator has a partner that shares in an interest of helping our members to achieve these goals, both in delivering best in class service and exploring and adopting new technologies, like Annette. Annette presents an opportunity for our members to deliver tech-forward call center solutions while optimizing the owner’s bottom line.”
For additional information on Annette, The Virtual Hotel Agent:
John Smallwood, President of Travel Outlook, the Premier Hotel Call Center™
jsmallwood@traveloutlook.com
Mobile 505-470-3241
About Travel Outlook, The Premier Hotel Call Center™
Given its progressive approach to the voice channel – in terms of performance, training, transparency, testing and the tools used to measure performance – Travel Outlook The Premier Hotel Call Center™ is the leading voice reservations team in hospitality. Travel Outlook's valued client list includes Viceroy Hotel Group, Curator Hotels and Resorts, Outrigger, KSL Resorts, Proper Hospitality Group, Atlantis, The Irvine Company, Catalina Island, and many others. Travel Outlook's team and approach increases sales conversion and helps to create more effective voice communication between hotels and their guests, resulting in improved social scores in addition to increased voice channel revenue. For more information, visit www.traveloutlook.com
About Annette, The Virtual Hotel Agent™
Annette is an AI-powered virtual contact center agent that represents the next generation of voice bots designed specifically for the Hospitality industry. Annette has been programmed using a breakthrough approach to voice bots, a system built from human conversations. Using social media, chat forums, and movie dialogue, Annette learns from billions of casual human conversations to understand human inflections and multi-turn queries. This revolutionary approach means Annette understands callers no matter what they say, when they say it, or how they speak. Annette can answer FAQs specific to your property, understand multiple languages, route calls, send follow up texts, and more. For more information, visit www.traveloutlook.com/annette/
About Curator Hotel & Resort Collection
Curator Hotel & Resort Collection is a distinct collection of small brands and independent lifestyle hotels and resorts worldwide, founded by Pebblebrook Hotel Trust and a group of industry-leading hotel operators. Curator provides lifestyle hotels access to a wide breadth of program offerings to enhance the guest experience, employee engagement, and value creation while allowing their members the freedom to retain what makes their hotels unique. It offers the benefits of associating with other unique lifestyle hotels and brands while participating in best-in-class operating agreements, services, reporting, and technology. In addition to Pebblebrook, the founding members of Curator include Davidson Hospitality Group, Noble House Hotels & Resorts, Provenance, Sage Hospitality Group, Springboard Hospitality, and Viceroy Hotels & Resorts. For more information, visit www.curatorhotelsandresorts.com and follow us at @CuratorHotelsandResorts.
About Pebblebrook Hotel Trust
Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE: PEB) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust (“REIT”) and the largest owner of urban and resort lifestyle hotels and resorts in the United States. The Company owns 50 hotels and resorts, totaling approximately 12,600 guest rooms across 15 urban and resort markets. For more information, visit www.pebblebrookhotels.com and follow us at @PebblebrookPEB.
Media Contact:
Raul Vega, President
LEVEL 5 Hospitality, LLC
vega@level5hospitality.com