Hotel Marketing in the AI Era: From Mass Promotion to Smart Growth

For many years, hotel marketing primarily revolved around familiar challenges: brand building, advertising campaigns, OTA optimisation, social media development, direct bookings, and loyalty programmes. However, the emergence of artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing how travellers search for information, select hotels, and make booking decisions. This shift is no longer a distant trend. According to Euromonitor, 51% of surveyed consumers reported using AI to plan their trips in the Voice of the Consumer: Travel Survey conducted in early 2025. As AI increasingly becomes a new interface between users and the world of information, hotels not only need to appear on Google, Facebook, or OTAs, but also need to be easily recognised, understood, and recommended by AI.

In Vietnam, this context is particularly noteworthy as the tourism market enters a new growth phase. The Vietnam National Authority of Tourism reports that in 2025, Vietnam will welcome nearly 21.2 million international visitors, an increase of 20.4% compared to 2024 and 17.8% higher than in 2019. Domestic tourists are expected to reach approximately 137.5 million, while total tourism revenue will be around 1 quadrillion VND. This means that market opportunities are expanding, but competition among hotels is also intensifying. In a market with numerous options, the advantage no longer solely lies with hotels that have larger marketing budgets, but rather with their ability to understand customers faster, personalise better, and convert data into more effective actions.

How is AI changing the search and booking journey?

The traditional booking journey often begins with a search engine, continues through the hotel website, OTAs, social media, customer reviews, and finally, the booking decision. AI is making this journey conversational, personalised, and less linear. A traveller may no longer start by asking, "Which 5-star hotels are there in Da Nang?". Instead, they might ask an AI: "I'm looking for a quiet resort in Da Nang for a family with young children, near the beach, with a swimming pool, and a budget of around 5 million VND per night." AI can synthesise needs, analyse information, and provide a list of suitable options.

Deloitte notes that AI is being increasingly applied in the tourism industry, from customer support, operational optimisation, and revenue management to discovering and purchasing travel products. In particular, new models are aiming to personalise communication with guests and create a more direct connection between travel inspiration and bookable products. More notably, Deloitte's 2025 travel season study shows that 15% of surveyed travellers have used GenAI in their trip planning process, up from 10% the previous year. Within this group, 61% used GenAI to find activities and attractions at their destination, 47% searched for dining options, and 38% used it to research destinations. For hotels, this creates a very significant shift: the marketing battle is not only taking place on the platforms customers access, but also within the AI's process of formulating answers for customers.

From Traditional SEO to AI Search Optimisation

SEO remains important, but how hotels optimise their discoverability is changing. Previously, the main goal of SEO was to rank high when users searched for a keyword. In the AI era, hotels need to go a step further: build a content system that is clear, reliable, and structured enough for AI systems to accurately understand what the hotel is, what services it offers, which guest segments it suits, and what its unique selling points are. This makes website content a strategic asset. A hotel should not just have promotional content like "luxurious rooms," "premium services," or "great location." The website needs to specifically answer questions that customers genuinely care about: whether the hotel is suitable for families or couples, what room types are available, how far it is from the airport, what the outstanding experiences are, whether there's a children's policy, what the restaurant serves, which season is best for a stay, and what activities can be experienced at the destination. In other words, as AI develops, hotel content must become more in-depth, structured, and authentic. Kantar also points out that AI is creating major changes in marketing, especially in its ability to generate personalised content and scale marketing experiences. However, alongside the opportunities are important questions about trust, data, and the relationship between humans and technology.

Personalisation: From "one message for all" to "the right message for each guest"

One of AI's greatest values for hotel marketing lies in its ability to analyse large volumes of data to identify the needs and behaviours of individual customer groups. A solo business traveller will have completely different needs from a family with two young children. A couple seeking a romantic getaway will not respond in the same way as a group of young friends looking for experiences and entertainment. While hotels previously segmented customers into relatively broad categories, AI allows businesses to move closer to a hyper-personalisationmodel, where content, offers, and communication timing are adjusted based on the customer's behaviour and context.

For example, guests who previously booked weekend stays might receive content about short breaks; guests who frequently use the spa might be offered wellness packages; guests who have used the restaurant service might receive dining offers; while guests planning to return to the destination might be suggested new experiences. This is the direction the hospitality industry is moving towards. In its report The Future of Hospitality , Deloitte suggests that AI can support hotels from the trip discovery phase, through in-stay interactions, to post-stay care, while also generating timely suggestions to promote ancillary services such as spa, restaurant, or destination activities. Marketing, therefore, is no longer simply "selling rooms." Marketing becomes a process of accompanying customers throughout their entire journey, from the moment they form a need until after they leave the hotel.

AI helps hotel marketing shift from reactive to predictive

One of the key differences between traditional marketing and AI-powered marketing is the ability to predict. Instead of just looking at past data to see what customers did last month, AI systems can help businesses identify trends, group behaviours, and make forecasts for more proactive marketing. By combining booking data, CRM, website, OTA, social media, stay history, and revenue data, hotels can better understand the factors influencing demand. For example, if data shows that family segments tend to book earlier for holiday periods, the hotel can launch campaigns before demand peaks. If data shows that a specific international guest segment has a high cancellation rate during a certain period, marketing and revenue can collaborate to adjust policies, messaging, and distribution strategies. This is a crucial intersection between Marketing, Revenue Management, and Data Analytics. AI should not be viewed as a standalone tool for the Marketing department but rather as an integral part of the hotel's commercial decision-making system.

Social Media in the AI Era: Beyond just creating more content

AI helps hotels create content faster, from articles, images, videos, and emails to advertising scripts. But creating more content does not equate to better marketing. Decision Lab's Connected Consumer Report Q1/2025 indicates that AI has become an increasingly common part of Vietnamese consumers' digital lives. The report also notes the growing fragmentation of platform usage behaviour, with Facebook and Zalo maintaining important roles, while TikTok and other video platforms continue to increase their influence.

This presents a new challenge for hotels: the same brand story needs to be expressed differently depending on the platform and context. Facebook may be suitable for storytelling and community; TikTok prioritises short, visual, and emotionally rich content; websites require in-depth content to build searchability; and email and CRM need personalised messages. AI can support the production and optimisation of this content, but the brand strategy must still be human-led. If hotels use AI merely to generate a mass of identical content, the brand risks becoming "voluminous but bland," losing its personality and distinctiveness, which are crucial elements in hospitality.

Hotel marketing in the AI era must start with data

Without good data, AI struggles to create good value. One common challenge for hotels is that customer data is scattered across multiple systems: PMS, CRS, booking engine, OTAs, CRM, websites, social media, and advertising platforms. When data is not connected, hotels may have a lot of information but lack a unified view of the customer. Therefore, the first step in AI Marketing does not necessarily involve implementing a complex chatbot or immediately investing in a large AI system. More importantly, it means building a structured data foundation, clearly defining customer touchpoints, and standardising how the business collects, stores, analyses, and uses data. Once the data foundation is ready, hotels can gradually implement AI for tasks that yield the clearest value: analysing customer behaviour, forecasting demand, personalising content, optimising advertising, supporting customer service, content creation, review analysis, and assisting marketing teams in decision-making.

AI doesn't replace hotel marketing; AI transforms how marketing creates value.

The most important thing hotel managers need to understand is that AI is not a "revenue-generating machine" that can simply be purchased and activated. AI only creates value when placed within the right strategy, with sufficiently good data, appropriate processes, and a team that understands how to use the technology. Kantar noted in its research on GenAI for marketing that many marketing leaders still do not feel ready for GenAI implementation and integration, while interviewed experts rated GenAI's potential impact over the next 3 to 5 years at 9/10.

In the hospitality industry, the gap between hotels that "have AI" and hotels that "know how to create value with AI" will become increasingly clear. A hotel might use AI to write hundreds of advertisements. But a hotel that truly masters AI Marketing will know which customers to target, with what message, at what time, on which channel, with what offer, and how to turn a search into a booking, a booking into a good experience, and a good experience into a loyal customer. At NewSun Hospitality, we view AI not merely as a technological tool but as a component of a comprehensive digital transformation strategy for hospitality businesses. From marketing strategy, content system development, customer data analysis, and experience journey optimisation to AI application in operations and business, each solution must be designed based on the actual commercial objectives of each hotel. If your hotel is seeking direction to apply AI in Marketing, enhance guest acquisition effectiveness, and build competitive capabilities in this new era, contact NewSun Hospitality to develop a strategy tailored to your business model and goals.

• Hotline: +84 768 68 2913
• Email: dosm@nshm.com.vn
• Zalo OA: https://zalo.me/2452770272256938463 (NewSun Hospitality)
• Website: https://nshm.com.vn/ (NewSun Hospitality)

References: 

• Vietnam National Authority of Tourism. (2026). Vietnam welcomes record-high international arrivals, positively contributing to service sector growth.
• Deloitte. (2025). 2025 travel industry outlook: Artificial intelligence ambition and anxiety amid acceleration. Deloitte Insights.
• Deloitte. (2025). 2025 summer travel study. Deloitte.
• Deloitte. (2026). The future of hospitality: Six imperatives for hospitality companies to consider. Deloitte.
• Decision Lab. (2025). Connected Consumer Report Q1 2025: Digital dynamics: The mainstreaming of AI tools in 2025 in Vietnam.
• Euromonitor International. (2025). AI: A turning point in global travel.
• Kantar. (2025). Fear or FOMO? Kantar reveals how marketers can unleash GenAI’s potential.
• Kantar Media. (2025). 2025 media trends and predictions report.
• Savills Vietnam. (2025). Viet Nam real estate market report Q1/2025.
• Statista. (2025). Hotels: Vietnam. Statista Market Insights.