How much can you trust the «41%» figure?

It's the most solid data available today on this topic, with a stated primary source and a transparent method, but it isn't a census. It describes hotels that answered an online survey in six European countries in spring 2025, not the entire hotel industry: people who answer a survey about technology are probably already more interested in the topic than average. Take it as a trend indicator, not as an exact percentage that applies to every property.

My property management software has no AI features: do I need to switch?

Check what it already has before you look at what it's missing. Many property management systems have added dynamic revenue management or text-generation features over the past few years without renaming the product: it's common for a hotel to already pay for a feature it doesn't know it has. Ask your current provider before you look at a new product.

Is it worth adding a chatbot to my website?

According to the study, it's one of the least common applications even among hotels that already use AI, and there are practical reasons why: running a chatbot well means keeping it updated with your property's information, and if it gets an answer wrong, a person still has to handle it. It makes sense when the volume of repetitive questions (hours, parking, pets) is already high and someone is currently answering them by hand several times a day. It's not the first thing to look at if you aren't already in that situation.

Is Italy behind the other countries in the study?

The Italian sample in the study comes almost entirely from Trentino, gathered through the local hotel association: 141 responses out of 1,485, mostly mountain properties. It isn't a sample that represents Italy as a whole, so this article doesn't give a figure for Italy: stating a number that doesn't hold up would be worse than not stating one.

Which AI tools should a small property look at first?

According to the study, they're also the most widely used among hotels that already have adopted AI: text-generation tools for descriptions and replies, review analysis to see where to focus, and dynamic pricing if your property management software already offers it. These are the three closest to the daily work of a small property, and usually the cheapest to try because they're often already included in software you're paying for anyway.

What changes for guest data if I use these tools?

It depends on the tool and where it processes data, and it's a question to ask the provider before you turn it on, not after: where guest data is stored, whether it stays in Europe, whether the tool uses it to train other models. A serious provider answers these questions in one line; if they don't, that's already an answer.

AI in hotels in 2026: what European hoteliers actually use

31 August 2026

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Every hospitality technology vendor has been telling the same story for a couple of years: artificial intelligence is everywhere, and whoever isn't using it is falling behind. It's the kind of line that sells well and holds up poorly under scrutiny. The first independent study to ask a meaningful number of European hoteliers what they actually do, not what they fear they should be doing, tells a more useful story: neither a revolution nor irrelevance, but selective adoption concentrated on a handful of concrete uses.

A study, not a survey run by a software vendor

Between January and April 2025, the Institute of Tourism at HES-SO Valais-Wallis (Switzerland), led by Professor Roland Schegg and funded by the Swiss innovation agency Innosuisse, collected responses from 1,485 hotels across six European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Switzerland. The survey reached hotels through their respective national hotel associations (source: Institute of Tourism, HES-SO Valais-Wallis, Artificial Intelligence in European Hotels: Adoption, Applications, and Barriers, June 2025; summary on Hospitality Net, authored by Schegg himself, published 9 July 2025, accessed 31 August 2026).

It's worth saying this before the numbers, not after: this is a voluntary sample, not a random draw. It's answered by whoever receives their association's newsletter and decides to spend a few minutes on it, and the country mix isn't balanced: Greece alone accounts for 31% of all responses, and the study itself flags this imbalance as a possible source of distortion in the aggregate figures. The numbers below therefore describe the hotels that answered this survey in these six countries in spring 2025, not "the European hotel industry" as a whole. With that stated limit, it remains the most solid data available today on this topic.

The real picture: 41, 43, 16

	Share
Already uses AI tools	41%
Doesn't use them	43%
Will introduce them soon	16%

This isn't a snapshot of an industry split into those who've figured it out and those left behind. It's a sizeable group that has started, a larger one that hasn't yet, and a third that's moving now. For a property that hasn't touched any of this, the honest reading is that it's neither first nor last in the class: it sits alongside close to half of the properties that answered this survey.

What "using AI" actually means: three things, not twenty

Among the hotels that have already adopted it (the 41% above), the study also asks what they actually use. Three applications stand out clearly from the rest.

Application	Share among AI adopters
Text generation (ChatGPT-type tools)	74%
Online review analysis	44%
Real-time dynamic pricing	42%

Text generation. This is the tool used to write a room description, a reply to a review, or a social post faster: it doesn't replace whoever decides what to say, it shortens the time it takes to say it. That's likely why this figure is the highest of the three: it doesn't require a contract with a specialised vendor, and it can be used from a website anyone can open in a minute.

Review analysis. With hundreds of reviews accumulated over the years, working out where to focus, whether check-in keeps coming up as a weak point, or breakfast does, becomes a job nobody does by hand one comment at a time anymore. The tool doesn't decide what to change here: it puts what to look at first in order.

Dynamic pricing. This is the feature that adjusts room rates based on demand without someone recalculating them every day. It isn't new to generative AI: automated revenue management has existed for years and is often already inside the property management software a property pays for anyway to meet local reporting and invoicing obligations. Before looking at a new product to do the same thing, it's worth checking whether that feature is already part of the subscription you have.

What stays marginal, and why that's fine

Website chatbots, in-property robotics, facial recognition at check-in: these are the applications that get the most headlines, and in the study they remain the least common even among hotels that already use AI. That's not a sign they "don't work": they make sense when a high volume of repetitive requests justifies the time it takes to set them up and keep them updated, a condition that mostly applies to chains and larger properties. For an independent property that isn't in that situation, not prioritising them isn't a gap to close: it's simply not being the case those tools are built for, today.

Why the 43% still don't use it

The two most cited reasons among hotels that haven't adopted anything aren't a verdict on how useful the tools are:

39% say they don't know enough about the solutions available;
35% cite setup cost as a barrier.

The two hold together, and partly solve each other. The text-generation figure (74% among adopters, and the cheapest to try since it's often free or already bundled into widely used tools) suggests that the part of "AI" most within reach for a small property isn't the one with the highest price tag: it's the one dedicated-system vendors advertise the least, because it doesn't earn them a subscription fee.

Where to start, without redoing anything

Three steps, in this order, before signing up for anything new.

Check what you already have. Ask your property management software provider whether it includes dynamic revenue management or text-generation tools: it's common to already pay for a feature without knowing it, because it arrived in an update without the product changing its name.

Find the repetitive work that costs you the most. Not "where could I put AI", but "what do I do every week that's always the same task": answering the same questions, writing similar descriptions, rereading the same reviews. That's where a tool saves real time, not generic "efficiency".

Don't chase what makes headlines. Robotics and facial recognition remain marginal even among hotels that have already adopted AI: if you don't have the volume that justifies them, they aren't the first thing to look at, whatever the article of the moment says.

The picture that emerges from this study isn't the alarm or the promise that usually comes with this topic: it's an industry adopting, selectively, the tools that save time on repetitive tasks, and for now leaving aside the ones that require a bigger investment for a less immediate return. If you're deciding where to start, that selectiveness isn't a limitation: it's the shortcut others have already found for you.

If you want to find out whether your property management software already has these features, or whether the process you'd like to automate isn't covered by any standard product, the digital check-up is free if you then go ahead with one of the monthly services. Otherwise write to me: describe what you do by hand every week, and I'll tell you whether a tool for that already exists or whether it's a different kind of case.