Hotel sales is a pressure cooker. Need dates stare you down. RFPs land incomplete and somehow still “ASAP.”
Leadership wants more prospecting, more productivity, more results (preferably yesterday).
Now add AI to the mix.
Some sellers are excited. Others are suspicious. A few are quietly hoping it goes away.
It’s not going away.
In a recent Sales on Tap session, co-founders Celeste Berke Knisely and Cory Falter sat down with two directors in the trenches, Kayoko Cameron, Director of Sales at the Coeur d’Alene Resort, and Zodella Ramos, Director of Sales at the DoubleTree Denver Cherry Creek, to unpack what AI actually means for hotel sales teams.
Spoiler: It’s not the robot apocalypse. It’s a wake-up call.
Everyone’s stretched thin. That’s the truth.
Kayoko says, “Everyone’s working with less time in the day, it seems like.”
The RFP example she shared says it all. A group inquiry came in, with barely any information. No website. No context. Just a name and a date.
Pre-AI? That’s 30–45 minutes of digging before you even make the call.
Now? “I was able to, in probably five to ten minutes, learn a lot more about the group than I would’ve prior to AI.”
She asked the tool to summarize the organization, past destinations, and even average room block behavior. By the time she picked up the phone, she wasn’t guessing. She was leading.
That’s not magic. That’s efficiency.
AI isn’t changing the need for research. It’s collapsing the time it takes to do it.
Let’s address the elephant in the banquet room.
Can AI replace hotel sellers?
Zoella says, “I just believe in people. I don’t think it’s possible.”
Hospitality runs on connection. Contracts are signed because someone feels understood. Conferences are rebooked because a planner trusts the team behind the scenes.
AI can generate a proposal. It can’t walk a planner through a site tour and read the room.
Kayoko says, “AI can help us with forecasting the future based on what we provide facts from our past… but that’s no guarantee.”
AI predicts. Humans decide.
It’s a tool. A powerful one. But it doesn’t carry 50 years of property knowledge like Kathy at Coeur d’Alene. It doesn’t know the unspoken politics of a corporate board. It doesn’t feel when a deal is about to slip.
The future isn’t AI versus sellers.
It’s sellers who use AI versus sellers who don’t.
Here’s where things get interesting.
Cory pointed out something many teams are already feeling: “It’s gotten really transactional.”
Third-party channels. Blind RFP blasts. Fewer conversations. More paperwork.
Ironically, AI might be what pushes us back toward real selling.
If administrative tasks shrink, if proposals are 90% done before you touch them, then where does your time go?
Back into prospecting. Back into relationships. Back into strategy.
Celeste sees it coming: “I do think we’re at this precipice that things are gonna change.”
Some management companies are already testing roles dedicated to outbound-only business development. No RFP babysitting. No reactive selling. Just hunting.
That’s old-school sales, with new-school intelligence behind it.
Here’s the thing: everyone talks about prospecting. Few teams measure what it actually produces.
Power hours. Activity quotas. Call counts.
But those activities can be… inflated.
Celeste challenged the room:
If we want prospecting, why aren’t sellers incentivized on self-generated business?
Instead of rewarding 80 calls a week, what if we rewarded $50,000 in new outbound-driven revenue?
AI changes this conversation. Because now sellers can:
Kayoko’s playbook is simple and brilliant: “Pick my top five accounts… put them into AI and say, give me five more companies like this.”
That’s not random calling. That’s intentional expansion.
This is the part that should get every hotel’s attention.
Planners are using AI.
They’re rate-checking proposals. They’re asking for the top venues in a region. They’re building shortlists before they ever submit an RFP.
And if your hotel isn’t showing up?
You don’t exist.
Cory broke it down into something AI cares deeply about: credibility signals.
AI prioritizes experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust. Not pretty ballroom photos. Not generic copy.
Trust.
That means:
As Cory said: “People are building trust, not bricks and mortar.”
Independent hotels, take note. You have more control over this than the brands do.
Zoella says, “AI is the Money Penny to your James Bond.”
You’re still 007. You’re still walking into the room, closing the deal, and reading the planner’s body language.
But now you’ve got backup.
Smarter research. Faster turnaround. Sharper targeting. More confidence for new sellers. Better strategy for veterans.
And maybe—just maybe—less time drowning in busywork.
AI isn’t here to replace hotel sales.
It’s here to expose inefficiencies.
It’s here to reward credibility.
It’s here to amplify sellers who are willing to experiment.
The question isn’t whether AI will change hotel sales.
It already has.
The real question is: will you treat it like a threat … or use it like a weapon?
Join Sales on Tap, our free community built for hotel sellers who want practical AI tools, smarter prospecting strategies, and real talk from people in the trenches. Monthly sessions. Actionable prompts. Zero fluff.
Grab your seat. Bring your questions. Let’s build your pipeline. Join us below.
No. In fact, independent hotels may have an advantage.
Most AI tools are accessible and affordable. What matters more than budget is input. Sellers who feed AI strong account data, past performance, and clear prompts will get sharper insights. Independent properties also control their messaging, testimonials, and case studies more directly, which strengthens the credibility signals AI prioritizes.
Start small and practical.
Use AI to:
Don’t try to automate everything. Replace one 30-minute research task with a 5-minute AI-assisted version. Build confidence from there.
Unlikely. It will accelerate them.
AI shortens the learning curve. New sellers can research accounts faster, understand industry context, and draft stronger communications earlier in their careers. The human side of selling—relationship building, negotiation, reading nuance—still requires experience and emotional intelligence.
AI enhances judgment. It does not replace it.
AI turns reactive gaps into targeted outreach.
Instead of blasting emails when occupancy dips, sellers can:
Need dates stop being panic moments and become precision opportunities.
Strengthen your credibility footprint.
AI pulls from signals that demonstrate expertise and trust:
If your digital presence lacks depth, AI has nothing to work with. Visibility is no longer just SEO. It’s proof.
