Hotel chatbot: guest questions do not wait for reception
A hotel chatbot answers the questions guests ask before and during a stay: check-in and check-out times, parking, breakfast, transfers, pets and cancellation terms. ALTAI Digital builds it to speak only from the hotel's own information. A question it cannot answer goes to reception with a summary. The chatbot replies in the language the guest writes in and sends booking questions to the hotel's own reservation page.
The same questions reach a small hotel's reception all day. What time is check-in? Is there parking? When is breakfast served? Can you arrange an airport transfer? Are dogs allowed? What are the cancellation terms? Every answer is known, yet each one is typed again on the phone, in WhatsApp and by email, while the person at the desk is also checking someone in.
Most of these questions arrive before the booking. A guest choosing between two hotels books the one that answers first and clearly. When the answer is slow, the guest goes back to the booking platform and reserves there. Platforms charge commission on every reservation, while a booking made on the hotel's own site does not. A fast answer is the first step towards a direct booking.
A hotel chatbot answers from the hotel's own information. The sources are room types, hours, parking and breakfast details, transfer options, and the pet and cancellation policies. When a question has no answer in those sources, the chatbot does not guess. It passes the conversation to reception with a summary. Complaints, price negotiation and group bookings always go to a person.
Below you will find the scope of a hotel chatbot build, the steps and the questions we hear most. For the hotel website and a direct booking page, see the hotels page under web design. We work from Rotterdam and Istanbul, and guest data is handled under GDPR. Pricing is given after the discovery call, once the channels and languages are clear.
What goes wrong today
- 01
Reception answers the same questions all day
Check-in times, parking, breakfast and transfers come up constantly. Each answer takes a few minutes. The person at the desk either keeps a waiting guest standing or leaves the message until later.
- 02
Questions sent at night wait until morning
Guests abroad write in their own time zone. A message arrives at midnight and the morning shift answers it. By then the guest has finished the conversation with another hotel.
- 03
A slow answer pushes the booking to a platform
A guest who does not get an answer books through a platform instead. The platform takes a commission on that reservation. A guest who could have booked direct arrives through the paid channel.
- 04
Questions in other languages stall
Guests write in English, German or Dutch. If nobody on the shift reads that language, the answer is late or too short, and the guest feels misunderstood.
- 05
The same detail differs by channel
Breakfast hours say one thing on the website, another on a platform page, and reception gives a third answer. Guests do not know which to trust and arrive disappointed.
- 06
Nobody collects the questions
No one knows which questions come up most often. The same question arrives daily, yet the answer never reaches the website. Without that measurement the site is never fixed.
Scope of the build
Answers from the hotel's own information
The chatbot is fed room types, check-in and check-out times, parking, breakfast, transfers, and the pet and cancellation policies. Answers come only from those sources. When a source changes, the answer changes the same day, so channels stop contradicting each other.
Website and WhatsApp on one source
The chatbot runs in the website chat and on the WhatsApp line from the same sources. On WhatsApp, Meta's twenty-four-hour rule and approved templates apply.
Replies in the guest's language
The chatbot answers in the language the guest writes in. Sources are kept in English and one more language of your choice. The summary that reaches reception is written in the language your team works in.
Booking questions go to your own channel
A guest asking about dates or rates is sent to the hotel's own booking page. The chatbot never invents a rate or availability; the booking page shows what is current. A direct booking carries no platform commission.
Handover to reception with a summary
Unanswerable questions, guest requests, complaints, price negotiation and group bookings go to reception. The summary and what the guest wrote open on the reception screen, so nothing is asked twice.
A plain greeting
The greeting tells guests they are talking to a bot, and the route to reception stays open in every message. The hotel approves the greeting text.
Monthly question report
Each month we report the most common questions and how many conversations the chatbot answered or passed on. Questions that come up often but have no answer on the website are listed, and the site is updated from that list.
How the set-up runs
- 01
Discovery (1 week)
We map the questions reaching reception on each channel, collect your policies and write the handover list and greeting with you.
- 02
Sources and setup
Sources are prepared in both languages, the chatbot is connected to the website and WhatsApp, and handovers are routed to the reception screen.
- 03
Trial week
The chatbot runs with the reception team first. Missing or wrong answers go back into the sources.
- 04
Launch and measure
The chatbot opens to guests. After the first month we report questions and handovers. The first live flow opens in four to eight weeks.
Hotel chatbot, two languages
- Sources built from your policies in two languages
- Website chat window and WhatsApp line
- Booking questions routed to your own booking page
- Handover to reception with a summary, and a written handover list
- A greeting that names the bot
- Monthly question and handover report
Pricing is given after the discovery call, once the scope is clear.
Products used in this build
AI chatbot and voice receptionist
It greets customers on your site and on the phone, answers what it has a source for, and hands the rest to a person.
Online booking and scheduling
Online booking for clinics, salons and hotels; reminders and cancellation handling close the empty slot.
WhatsApp Business integration
Notifications, order tracking and customer conversations gather in the business account; the history stays with the company.
Terms used on this page
- Hotel chatbot
- Software that answers a guest's written question from the hotel's own information and passes anything else to reception.
- Direct booking
- A reservation made on the hotel's own website rather than through a platform, with no commission to pay.
- Booking platform
- An online channel that sells rooms for many hotels and charges commission on each reservation.
- Handover list
- The written list of topics, such as complaints and group bookings, that always go to reception.
- Hotel sources
- The room types, hours, parking, breakfast, transfer and cancellation details the chatbot answers from.
hotel chatbotFrequently asked questions
Anything in the sources you provide: check-in and check-out, parking, breakfast, transfers, pets, room types and cancellation terms. Questions outside the sources go to reception.
No. Rates and availability change, and the chatbot does not invent them. A guest asking about dates is sent to the hotel's own booking page, which shows what is current.
The chatbot answers in the language the guest writes in. Sources are kept in English and one more language, usually Dutch or German. The summary to reception comes in the language your team uses.
Complaints are on the default handover list and go straight to reception. The chatbot does not try to resolve them. Reception sees the summary and everything the guest wrote.
Yes. The greeting says so, and the route to reception stays open. The hotel approves the greeting text before launch.
Yes, from the same sources as the website chat. On WhatsApp, Meta's twenty-four-hour rule applies, so after that window only approved templates can be sent.
Written conversations are stored in your account and are not used to train models. What is kept, and for how long, is set out at setup in line with GDPR, and the privacy notice is shown in the greeting.
The first live flow opens in four to eight weeks. The timing depends on the channels, the languages and how much of your policy is already written down. Your own timeline is set out in the discovery report.
Other sectors
The process first, the proposal after
In a short discovery call we map the process together and tell you plainly whether it is worth automating. If it is not, we say that too.
30 minutes · no preparation needed
