Your hotel already runs an AI strategy you never wrote down

Here is the uncomfortable bit of housekeeping for anyone running a hotel today. You already have an AI strategy. Not the one someone presented in a boardroom, the one that quietly grew inside your stack while you were busy negotiating rates. That is the argument in this Hospitality Net opinion piece, and I think it lands harder than most vendor decks would like.

The author pushes for a structured diagnostic of the eight links in the booking journey where ownership of the guest can change hands without anyone noticing. That is the part hoteliers should tape to the wall. Your channel manager, your booking engine, your CRM, your pricing tool: each one is making small algorithmic decisions on your behalf, and each one is a place where the relationship can slip a notch further from your hands.

My take. Stop treating AI as a project to greenlight and start treating it as an audit you owe yourself. Map the eight steps, name who owns the guest at each one, and you will find the gaps fast. That is not a threat, it is the cheapest strategic work in travel tech right now.