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A hotel's AI assistant: the questions guests ask and where answers go wrong
Guests ask a hotel's website chat about check-in, parking, breakfast, cancellation and the tourist tax. A list of those questions, the page each answer should come from, and a made-up example of the mistake that costs a hotel most.
· 4 min read · Supa Brain
Hotels were early adopters of website chat, and for good reason. Most guest questions are about facts the hotel already publishes: what time check-in starts, whether there is parking, how much breakfast costs, what happens if plans change. Answer those quickly, at any hour, in the guest’s language, and fewer people pick up the phone or book elsewhere.
The same questions are where an AI assistant can go wrong in ways that cost a hotel money and reviews. This note lists them and shows how to set the assistant up so it answers from the hotel’s own pages.
What guests ask
Questions to a hotel’s chat cluster around the stay itself. A typical list, roughly in order of how often they come up:
| Question | Where the answer should come from |
|---|---|
| “What time is check-in and check-out?” | Hotel information page |
| “Can I check in early or leave my bags?” | Same page, with any fee |
| “Is there parking, and how much?” | Getting here or facilities page |
| “Is breakfast included? How much is it?” | Rates page or dining page |
| “Can I cancel for free?” | Booking conditions, per rate type |
| “Is the city tax included in the price?” | Rates or booking conditions |
| “Do you have a room for four people?” | Room types page |
| “How do I get here from the airport or station?” | Getting here page |
| “Is there a lift? Is the room accessible?” | Accessibility information |
| “Can I pay at the hotel?” | Booking conditions |
Two kinds of question should go straight to a person or the booking engine: anything about a specific existing reservation, and live availability for specific dates, unless the assistant is connected to the booking system.
Where answers go wrong
Rate-dependent rules. Most hotels sell at least two rates: flexible, with free cancellation until a day or two before arrival, and non-refundable, cheaper and paid in advance. A question like “can I cancel for free?” has two right answers, and the assistant often gives one of them as if it were the only one.
Fees on separate pages. Early check-in, late check-out, parking, extra beds, the city tax. Each is often mentioned on a different page, or only in the booking engine. The assistant either misses the fee or applies the wrong one.
Seasonal facts. Breakfast hours on weekends, a restaurant closed in winter, a pool open from May to September. Pages say “in season” and the assistant has to guess what that means.
Taxes. In much of Europe, a tourist or city tax is charged per person per night, and whether it is included in the displayed price varies. EU rules expect the total price, including taxes and unavoidable fees, to be shown up front when it can be calculated.1 A wrong answer here becomes a dispute at the front desk.
A made-up example
A 40-room city hotel has a flexible rate and a non-refundable rate. Its booking conditions say: “Flexible rate: free cancellation until 48 hours before arrival. Non-refundable rate: paid at booking, no refund for cancellation or no-show.” Its FAQ, written years ago, says: “You can cancel free of charge up to 24 hours before arrival.”
A guest who booked the non-refundable rate asks the assistant: “Something came up. Can I still cancel for free? We arrive in three days.”
The assistant finds the FAQ and replies: “Yes, you can cancel free of charge up to 24 hours before arrival.” The guest cancels by email, expecting a refund. The hotel refuses, citing the conditions they accepted. The guest posts a screenshot of the chat in their review.
Nothing exotic happened. The assistant answered from a page the hotel published. The FAQ was out of date, and the question depended on the rate, which the assistant didn’t ask about.
The fix: remove or update the old FAQ line, and give the assistant a short cancellation answer that names both rates and asks which one the guest booked: “It depends on your rate. Flexible: free cancellation until 48 hours before arrival. Non-refundable: no refund. You can see your rate in your confirmation email.” For anything about an existing booking, hand over to reception.
A setup checklist for hotels
- One page of facts. Check-in and check-out times, early check-in and late check-out fees, parking, breakfast times and price, city tax and whether it is included, accessibility. Plain sentences, one fact each.
- Rate rules in one place. Every rate’s cancellation and payment terms, side by side, in text.
- Seasonal facts with dates. “The pool is open from 1 May to 30 September” instead of “in season”.
- Clear hand-overs. Existing bookings, group requests, complaints and special requests go to reception, with the hours someone replies.
- Languages. If guests write in German, French or Spanish, test those languages too. Assistants often answer in the guest’s language from an English page, and translated numbers and dates are where small errors creep in.
- Ask before every season. Breakfast, pool, restaurant and parking rules change with the season; so should the test questions. Zendesk’s own advice on testing AI agents makes the same point: test with real customer wording, and again after content changes.2
The platforms hotels use for chat, including Intercom, Zendesk and Tidio, all work the same way underneath: they answer from the pages you give them. How an AI assistant answers explains why that matters.
If you run a hotel and want an assistant set up on your own pages, or an existing one checked against them every week, that’s what Assistant Setup and Assistant Care do. Our travel and leisure page has more examples.
Footnotes
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European Commission, Your Europe, “Pricing and payments”, europa.eu/youreurope. ↩
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Zendesk, “Best practices for testing AI agents”, support.zendesk.com. ↩