How an AI agent in a hotel turns a guest enquiry into an offer
Guest enquiries take up a lot of time in high season. An AI agent prepares them, your team approves. How this works step by step, what the figures from Carinthia and Austria show and what to look for when choosing AI consulting.
The short answer: an AI agent takes the groundwork of enquiries off a hotel's hands. An AI agent is a program that handles a recurring task on its own, step by step, and asks a person for approval. In a hotel it reads the email, captures travel dates, guests and requests, checks the booking system for available rooms and writes a draft offer in the guest's language. Your team reads the draft, adjusts it if needed and sends it. The contact with the guest stays with people, the typing does not.
Why enquiries take up so much time in a hotel
Many bookings in Austria go directly through the property. According to the European hotel distribution study by HOTREC, published by the hotel association of the Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO), 59.9 per cent of bookings in Austria go directly to the hotels. The two most important channels are booking by email and real-time booking on the hotel's own website. Every enquiry by email means: read it, copy out the details, check availability, calculate the price, reply.
In Carinthia, guests are also staying for shorter periods. According to provisional figures from the regional statistics office, the state recorded around 13.1 million overnight stays and 3.3 million arrivals in 2025. The average length of stay was 4.0 nights, the shortest since records began. The same number of nights therefore means more enquiries, more offers and more confirmations. And they arrive in several languages: 40.6 per cent of overnight stays were by guests from Austria, 32.2 per cent by guests from Germany and 6.9 per cent by guests from the Netherlands.
At the same time, staff are scarce. In 2025 the Austrian Public Employment Service (AMS) recorded an annual average of 7,717 vacancies in accommodation and food services. Every hour your team does not spend retyping stays with the guests.
How an enquiry works with an AI agent, step by step
- The enquiry arrives. By email or through the form on your website, in German, English, Dutch or another language.
- The agent reads and captures. Arrival, departure, number of guests, children and their ages, requests such as a pet or half board. If something is missing, it suggests a short follow-up question.
- The agent checks the booking system. If it is connected, the agent reads available rooms and rates. It is not allowed to book, that stays with the team.
- The agent writes a draft. In the guest's language and in the tone of your house, with suitable rooms and with building blocks from your own texts.
- Your team approves. A person reads the draft, changes it if needed and sends it. The agent flags unclear cases instead of guessing.
What changes: reception no longer starts with an empty email, but with a finished proposal. A person still decides what the guest receives.
How many hotels and restaurants already use AI?
Fewer than average. According to Statistics Austria, around 23.7 per cent of Austrian businesses in accommodation and food services with ten or more employees used artificial intelligence in 2025. Across all sectors the figure is 29.9 per cent. Of the hotels and restaurants that already use AI, only around one in six has its own rules for it, 16 per cent.
Guests are further ahead. According to the Austrian National Tourist Office (Österreich Werbung), in some markets more than 40 per cent of travellers already use AI applications for inspiration, planning or during their trip. In 2026 the Ministry of Economy commissioned the Austrian National Tourist Office to develop an AI strategy for tourism. For an individual business this means: relieving one clear process with AI now puts you ahead.
What should tourism businesses look for in AI consulting?
Anyone looking for AI consulting for tourism in Austria will find many offers. These questions help you choose, whoever you work with:
- One process first. Good consulting starts with a concrete process, such as enquiries, not with a big strategy on paper.
- Connection to your systems. Ask how the agent accesses your mailbox and your booking system. If there is no interface, an agent can operate the screen like a person.
- Approval by your team. Nothing should go to guests without review, especially at the start.
- Handling guest data. Guest data is personal data. Clarify where it is processed and who has access.
- Support after launch. Seasons, rates and rooms change. The agent has to grow with them, not just be set up once.
What this means for your business
The best first step is a single process that happens often and takes a lot of time. In most properties, that is enquiries. Together with you, we look at how enquiries reach you today, connect the agent to your mailbox and booking system and define who approves what. Guest data stays under control: depending on the business with Claude or ChatGPT in the business edition or with a local model, and our AIROS Gateway checks what goes to external AI services.
Which other processes we relieve in hotels and restaurants is described under AI in tourism. How we support businesses in Villach, Klagenfurt and across Carinthia is described under AI consulting in Carinthia.