E-commerce vs. Reservations: The Battle Inside Hotel Groups in the Age of AI

Hotel groups and large resorts usually have 2 separate sales structures and leaderships: Reservation & Contact Center, responsible for sales via telephone, email, WhatsApp and other inbound service channels, as well as e-commerce, for website, booking engine, and third-party channels.

I really like this setup because both funnels are crucial in terms of revenue, even more so when their teams receive some kind of performance-based bonus or commission. As both areas are very different when it comes to management skills and operations, it makes sense for each team to have its own leader. Of course, we must consider the size of the business.

I’ve had many meetings with both leaders and the feeling is that sometimes there is a conflict of interest between both departments. Technologies designed for website sales optimization can be seen as a competitor for a Reservation Manager who fears losing their team’s results/commission as well as their own.

Strategically speaking, investors would most likely prefer growing their direct bookings and revenue with the lowest acquisition cost, and may be achieved faster if both departments collaborate.

Who should manage AI Reservation Agents?

With AI reservation agents becoming quite common in all groups and hotels, this topic raises interesting questions, like which department will manage this technology?

If this AI agent is solely deployed without human intervention on the website chat to finalize reservations on the booking engine, the e-commerce manager is likely to be responsible, right? But, we need to consider that the AI also generates a lot of qualified leads, such as group quotes that the reservation manager normally handles.

In addition, an AI omnichannel service platform, such as Asksuite, enables the reservation team to manage multiple channels and automatically follow up with the leads who don’t finalize the reservation during the first chat. This way, the reservation manager can leverage AI to increase their results through both group quotes and B2C follow-ups.

On the other hand, e-commerce is usually very interested in implementing this kind of technology to increase direct bookings and identify website visitors. It also offers a conversational booking experience, which is a customer expectation nowadays, especially since generative AI was released.

Thus, it has a positive impact on both operations. But we’ve seen some conflicts of interest when the reservation manager wants to bring more traffic to their channels and the e-commerce manager to the website + booking engine. So the question continues, who should manage this omnichannel AI agent?

Possible solution

At the end of the day, maximizing the total direct bookings is what really matters. Wouldn’t it be ideal to have the best of both worlds with a shared goal for each manager? Rather than blocking one or the other, they will collaborate on several fronts. That’s why many hotels are centralizing sales, e-commerce and marketing under the Revenue Director/C-Level.

One possibility is to have one shared direct booking target for both sectors. So, no matter where the customer interacts and finalizes the booking, via contact center or self-service on the website. As an AI Omnichannel service platform has multiple features, both for e-commerce and contact center, the two departments should collaboratively manage each part of the system, while working towards a mutual direct revenue target.

The second option is to establish different objectives for each one. This way, all self-service reservations via third-party channels, website, AI reservation agent and booking engine would be assigned to the e-commerce manager. While, on the other hand, reservation results through the contact center would be directed to the reservation team. This also includes interactions initiated by the AI but finalized by human agents.

Have you ever experienced this kind of conflict of interest between e-commerce and reservations?