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WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR AI IN HOSPITALITY ? WE ASKED AN EXPERT .
By DAVID EISEN
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Max Starkov is ubiquitous on social media . LinkedIn , specifically . If someone puts forth a take , especially related to or tangentially about hospitality technology , you can bet Starkov will frankly respond — and you can expect that it will be erudite and , potentially , contrarian . Some background : Starkov is a hospitality and online travel industry technologist , consultant and digital strategist with 30 years of experience in hospitality technology and digital marketing , hotel online distribution and revenue management , hotel CRM and branding strategies . He was the founder , president and CEO and , more recently , founder and board director at NextGuest ( now merged with Cendyn ), a
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digital consulting , technology , CRM and marketing firm . For more than 20 semesters , Starkov has been an adjunct professor on hospitality technology , online distribution in travel and hospitality , hotel digital marketing and CRM at New York University ’ s Tisch Center for Hospitality & Tourism .
Who better then to ask about the tech topic on everyone ’ s mind : artificial intelligence . It ’ s not just here , it ’ s mutating every second and every day . We asked Starkov what he thinks the implications are for AI in hospitality .
HOTELS : What are the short-term and long-term implications for AI in hospitality ? Where is its usefulness for hoteliers ?
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Starkov : When discussing AI , we have to make a clear distinction between general AI and machine learning ( ML ) and the much-hyped generative AI ( genAI ), like ChatGPT . General AI and ML have been used in robotics for some time now : RMS , CRS and CRM platforms . As for genAI , if you dissect all of the hype and actual implementations of generative AI , like ChatGPT and Google Gemini , they fall into five categories that are already having significant impact on travel and hospitality :
• enhanced chatbots to handle trip planning and customer service
• virtual assistants
• content translations
• marketing and website copywriting
• responses to customer reviews
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40 hotelsmag . com Mar / Apr 2025 |