Even as AI captures attention and imagination, there are still some simple ground truths we face in hospitality, both from the underlying systems and from a training and guest experience design perspective. The X’s and O’s.
I recently stayed at a hotel that is part of a large, global, multi-brand hotel. I have lifetime elite status. I have been a loyalty member for 30 years. I have the branded credit card for 25+ years. Think about how much spend that represents over that time period- especially on the credit card side of things which includes personal and work expenditures– and at my current age/stage, how much that could represent over the next 10-20 years.
I have stayed at the same brand 1-2 times in the past year and just 2 weeks ago stayed at one of their comparable segment scale brands in different locations. My birthday happened to fall during my stay.
AND YET…when I checked in, on my birthday itself, and during my stay, there was no recognition of my birthday at all because I did not explicitly tell them it was my birthday.
Think about this for a moment- 30 years of being in the loyalty program, 25+ years of credit card info/usage, recent stays and what are the two things every hotel asks for when you check in? A credit card and what else? An ID! And what’s on your ID? Date of birth!
So from a business design and systems perspective– how do we automate and flag when someone will have a birthday during their stay from data we have had for decades in multiple systems?
And from a human training perspective– when checking IDs take one second to check if the month and day of their DOB falls within the stay (or just happened or is coming up) and simply recognize that and wish the guest a happy birthday warmly and genuinely.
The most egregious part? This happened at one of their LUXURY brands! Though the same should be true even if the stay happened to be at one of the midscale brands. At Luxury, recognition, being seen, valued, etc., not points, is what matters most.
Hopefully, AI can help better bridge systems and surface this information systemically and flag it in systems in such an obvious way (e.g., visuallly on screen for colleagues), that even if they miss a visual check on the ID, the are augmented by a visual cue they can’t miss.
In 2026, should this still happen?
*I want to make clear, this is neither a rant/venting, nor seeking something from a company, etc. – I have purposefully masked which company / brand it is so no one will know and I won’t reveal it. Also, it’s not a self-pity / fishing for birthday wishes/attention. It’s about calling out a good example of where we still, as an industry and even or especially at luxury, have opportunities with the X’s and O’s in getting the basics right to deliver hospitality and my hope that perhaps, with better tech and innovation, including AI, but also the critical need to invest in training your teams and equipping them, can deliver a great guest experience!