What Skills Do Hotel Marketers Need in the AI Era?

“We try to hire people with a curious and growth mindset. For some, it is easy to take AI at face value, but without proper prompts or training, the output can be generic or just wrong. The right individuals will dig deeper and use learned experience to develop better strategies. We have built Gems in Gemini that we are constantly tweaking, along with integrating our Google Workspace with SOPs and Gmail.

Additionally, we give the team time to test and play with AI and have open discussions about how to leverage it better. Next is building tiered agents to help with operational bottlenecks.”

“The skill nobody names is “not waiting for permission”. People wait for someone to tell them it’s okay to experiment on company time, with company data, on real work. The ones pulling ahead decided on their own that learning is the work. Three traits separate them:

1. Curiosity, which is the willingness to try something without knowing the outcome.
2. Patience, which is the understanding that capability compounds over months rather than afternoons.
3. Scepticism, which keeps you from being impressed by output that sounds good and is wrong.

Miss any one of the three and you get a predictable failure. Curiosity without scepticism produces confident nonsense. Scepticism without curiosity produces paralysis. Patience without either produces slow paralysis. The combination creates leverage, and leverage separates the people doing AI from the people talking about it.”

“The most important skill is thinking about marketing as a connected system rather than a collection of separate channels. AI is making execution faster, and the value lies more and more in the strategy and positioning.

Understanding how AI-driven campaign types work is becoming essential. Google and Meta are moving everything behind automated targeting. If you do not understand what these systems optimise for, and where platform interests diverge from yours, you will waste budget without knowing why.

AI visibility is another big one. Search is moving toward curated, conversational answers. Hotels need to understand what makes a brand recommendable to AI assistants, and that is a brand positioning and PR challenge as much as it is an SEO one.

And then there is the creative side. When every team uses the same AI tools with the same prompts, output starts to look the same. Use AI to handle the repetitive production work. Spend your human energy on original thinking and genuine guest understanding. That is where distinction comes from.”

“The idea that AI simply replaces marketers is wrong from my perspective – but the marketer who doesn’t use AI will be replaced by the one who does. The skill profile is shifting very fast, and the solutions at hand have never been that easy to use or accessible.

1. First: prompt fluency and tool orchestration.
   It’s no longer enough to just “use ChatGPT.” Teams need to know which model fits which job, how to chain tools, how to feed AI the right context (brand voice, USPs, guest data) so output isn’t generic. We’ve started training our own team to think in workflows, not single prompts, and have added new AI tools at their service whilst building our own tools in parallel.
2. Second: data literacy.
   AI is only as good as the data you point it at (sh… in, sh… out). Marketers need to read PMS, CRM and web analytics data, understand attribution, know about demand, and ask the right business questions. Pretty dashboards are out; actionable KPIs are in. Business intelligence is the key.
3. Third: GEO and conversational search optimisation.
   Google’s blue-link era is fading. We’re already restructuring client websites and content for AI answer engines – clear entities, structured data, quotable phrasing. This is a completely new discipline and once again we all together need to be proactive in educating the market.
4. Fourth: tech-stack judgement.
   With 1,000+ hotel-tech vendors out there, the marketer or customer success manager becomes a curator who decides which API should talk to which – and where AI sits in between.

What we’re doing personally:
At opensmjle we’re building Cowork-based mini-applications and backend UIs that sit on top of our clients’ open APIs. That forces us to learn agentic AI hands-on – not as a buzzword, but as a daily working tool. We block time and resources purely for “AI sandbox time,” to test new models, discuss MCP integrations, and automations. Future-proofing isn’t a course you take; it’s a habit of permanent curiosity integrated into our daily routines.”

“Currently, I make use of AI tools in my daily work across a range of tasks and functions. Being a knowledge worker, the synthesis of information and analysis is of high value to my work. In essence, hospitality industry colleagues must embrace these tools for the value they bring in assisting today’s normal work processes. I differentiate between:

• consumer AI; tools available to everyone, and
• business AI; tools available inside specific business technology.

Today, many do not yet have the latter. as technology providers begin to introduce this capability into business tools. However, everyone has access to consumer AI and this is the natural and most immediate place for a person to begin. I’m not certain that it is as much about new skills, as it is about embracing the ongoing evolution of technology and leveraging the tools at your disposal.

AI is the next layer of computing capability, and it will make the engagement of human-technology far more successful as we move forwards.”

“As generative and agentic AI begin to create content, recommendations, and decisions at scale, the real skill for marketing teams is shifting from simply using AI, to actively guiding and overseeing it. Industry thinking increasingly points to the same conclusion: success won’t come from how much you automate, but from how relevant, consistent, and on‑brand those outputs feel.

As an example, while AI can quickly produce hundreds of offer variations, it’s still up to marketers to set the right prompts, guardrails, tone, and context—so the result feels thoughtfully curated and true to the brand, rather than generic or mechanical.”

“There is a lot of noise around AI replacing marketers. I don’t see that happening. What I do see is average marketers getting replaced by those who think better.

The real gap in hotel teams today is not tools. It is thinking. Most teams are busy reporting what happened. Very few can clearly answer what to do next and why, so the skills that matter are shifting fast.

• First, commercial thinking over channel thinking. If a marketer cannot connect campaign performance to revenue metrics like ADR, RevPAR, and profit contribution, they will struggle to stay relevant.
• Second, AI as a thinking partner, not a shortcut. I see many teams using AI to generate content faster. That’s useful, but not transformational. The real leverage comes from using AI to analyse patterns, simulate scenarios, and accelerate decision-making.
• Third, conversion obsession. Traffic is becoming cheaper and more accessible. Conversion is where most revenue is lost. Yet, CRO is still underdeveloped in most hotel teams.

What I am personally focusing on is building AI-assisted workflows that reduce time spent on reporting and increase time spent on strategy. I am also doubling down on structured data and SEO because discovery itself is being reshaped by AI. What most people get wrong is chasing every new tool. Tools don’t create advantage. Better questions and faster decisions do.”

“Hotel marketing teams will need to move beyond traditional campaign execution and develop a more hybrid skillset that combines marketing intuition with data and technology fluency. One of the most critical shifts is the ability to work alongside AI tools, not just use them. This includes prompt design, content validation, and understanding where AI outputs may introduce bias or inaccuracies. Teams that can critically evaluate AI-generated content will have a clear advantage over those who rely on it passively.

Another essential skill is data interpretation and decision-making. AI can generate insights, but marketers still need to ask the right questions and translate outputs into actionable strategies. For example, using predictive analytics to identify high-value guest segments is only useful if the team can design targeted campaigns that align with those insights.

Equally important are storytelling and experience design. As AI makes content creation faster and more accessible, the real differentiator becomes the ability to craft compelling narratives that resonate with guests. Recent industry reports, including from the Wall Street Journal, have highlighted storytelling as a high-demand skill, reflecting the need to translate data-driven insights into meaningful brand stories. In practice, this means moving beyond generic messaging and clearly articulating what makes a guest experience memorable and worth choosing.

From a personal standpoint, I have been integrating AI tools into both research and teaching to better understand their capabilities and limitations. I am also continuously refining how I evaluate AI-generated outputs, particularly in areas like content creation and decision support. This hands-on experimentation is essential, as the technology is evolving quickly, and staying relevant requires ongoing learning rather than one-time adoption. It also informs how I prepare students to work with AI more critically and effectively in real-world settings.”

“AI tools can generate insights, but teams must understand how to read, question, and apply them. This includes working with guest segmentation, forecasting demand, and identifying high-value audiences. It is important to know how to effectively use AI platforms for content creation and campaign optimisation, but what is even more important is collaboration with revenue management and operations – and then guest communication can significantly increase productivity.

The goal is not to replace human creativity, but to enhance it—using AI to automate repetitive tasks, uncover insights, and allow marketing teams to focus more on strategy, personalisation, and guest experience.”

“As AI raises the baseline for content and execution, “good” marketing will no longer be enough. When anyone can generate beautiful visuals, copy, and campaigns instantly, differentiation shifts elsewhere.

What will set brands apart is clarity of identity and depth of thinking. AI can replicate patterns—but it can’t originate true perspective. It doesn’t feel, it doesn’t intuit, and it doesn’t understand context in the way humans do. That’s where marketing teams need to evolve: toward creativity, taste, and psychological insight.

Understanding why people travel is becoming more important than how they book. Guests are increasingly drawn to experiences that offer something deeper—connection, wellbeing, a sense of meaning. The popularity of things like yoga isn’t just about the activity itself; it reflects a broader desire to feel better, more balanced, more present.

The opportunity for hospitality brands is to think beyond the obvious.

• What else creates that feeling?
• What else allows guests to reconnect—with themselves, with others, with a place?

That requires thinking outside the category, not just within it. From a skills perspective, this means:

• Developing a strong brand point of view
• Understanding human behaviour and emotional drivers
• Curating experiences that feel both familiar and distinctive
• Knowing how to use AI as a tool, without letting it define the output

Personally, I’m focused on using AI to enhance efficiency—whether that’s structuring ideas, analysing patterns, or supporting decision-making—while ensuring that the final layer remains human, considered, and intentional. Because ultimately, people don’t remember perfectly optimised campaigns; they remember how something made them feel.”

“As an agency, and personally as a web developer and SEO specialist with 15+ years of experience, we’ve been fully invested in AI since its early stages, long before it became mainstream. What has changed recently is not just the capability of the tools, but the shift in the skillsets needed to actually get the most out of them.

To use AI properly, teams need to understand how to connect data across systems. That often means working with APIs from PMSs, CRMs and other platforms, and linking these into communication channels. Marketers can’t just rely on tools anymore, they need a basic understanding of how everything fits together.

It’s easy to get ChatGPT to write a room description, but the real opportunity goes further than that. For example, pulling live rates into a chatbot, or segmenting users based on what they have previously booked to enhance marketing and social campaign. To build things like this, you need the ability to structure workflows, connect systems and maintain them over time.

From our side, we use AI as an assistant to automate processes and speed up production. This includes rapid website prototyping, SEO workflows, and using real-time inventory data to improve conversion on our clients’ websites.

The focus is shifting away from using AI just to generate content, and more towards building systems that allow teams to do a lot more with the same resources. Ultimately, AI is raising the bar. The advantage will go to those who know how to use it properly and combine that technical understanding with strong marketing strategy.”

“Most hotels will rely on their hotel brands (corporate office) to survive in the AI-driven hospitality world. Single hotel properties simply can’t afford marketing or AI specialists. On the other hand, corporate offices need to justify their fees by offering training and tech support. These trainings include both marketing and AI/tech components.

For marketing, a hotel needs to identify its persona, unique selling points, and value proposition. Once hotels get these right, they can develop an AI strategy to execute their marketing plan.”

“The key skills are understanding and being able to use and integrate AI software tools for more layered and detailed customer insights, relationship management, and lead generation in a seamless manner – for example, through Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

At a university level, a key way for us to implement these learnings is through relevant simulations that connect with learning outcomes and are part of the assignment briefs. Furthermore, examining case studies and engaging with guest speakers over a period of time help develop those skills in a coherent manner, for example, by focusing on AI-powered insights, personalisation at scale and customer journey creation linked to marketing campaigns is an effective way to develop and reinforce key skills.”