Has personalisation become an overused buzzword in hospitality?

Boutique Hotel News held its latest Feed Your Mind hotelier thought leadership event in partnership with Agilysys, hosted at Four Seasons Hotel London at Tower Bridge.

Feed Your Mind events are co-hosted, content-driven roundtable discussions over breakfast, lunch or dinner. Each event is designed to provide hotel service providers with the opportunity to inform and shape the market.

In partnership with Agilysys, the latest Feed Your Mind event explored whether personalisation has become hospitality’s most overused buzzword, and what genuine personalisation should look like across the luxury hotel guest journey.

Recent research from eMarketer identified four forces shaping personalisation in 2026: 

1. Declining engagement with generic content: 78 per cent of marketers say they cannot produce personalised content at scale, and 65 per cent say it is too difficult to create timely, personalised content for all customer segments.
2. Growing AI-mediated demand: 54 per cent of Gen Z and 60 per cent of Millennials trust AI agents to make better recommendations than in-store associates 
3. An execution gap caused by disconnected data and workflows
4. Consumer trust

Against this backdrop, hoteliers discussed how technology and human interaction can work together to deliver relevant experiences without making personalisation intrusive or operationally unsustainable.

Key takeaways from the discussion include:

• There is no universally accepted definition of personalisation. At its most effective, it comes down to recognition and relevance – understanding why a guest is travelling, anticipating their needs, and responding appropriately.
• As guests can access higher-quality amenities and technology at home, hotels need to create experiences and memories that cannot easily be bought or replicated elsewhere. Knowing the purpose of a guest’s stay is critical to delivering this.
• Guests need to feel a sense of agency over how their data is used, and what feels helpful in one hotel or guest segment can feel intrusive in another. 
• The pre-arrival journey remains one of hospitality’s weakest points. Disconnected technology stacks and fragmented guest profiles prevent hotels from recognising returning customers, understanding previous stays and acting on intent while it is still relevant.
• Technology should ultimately give hotel teams more time with guests. Staff need enhanced training, and to build the confidence to step out from behind the technology and create an emotional connection.
• High staff turnover and growing payroll pressures make institutional guest knowledge harder to retain. It increases the importance of systems which can support, rather than replace, well-trained teams.
• Some of the strongest AI applications are behind the scenes. Participants highlighted practical use cases including rebuilding month-end reports, filtering high volumes of emails, responding to routine reservation questions, and supporting itinerary creation.

Companies represented included Aethos London Shoreditch, art’otel Battersea, Cheval Collection, COMO Metropolitan London, Crieff Hydro Hotel, EQ Group, Firmdale Hotels, Four Seasons Tower Bridge, Hand Picked Hotels, Hilton Bankside, Kingfisher Hospitality Group, Meliá White House, NYX London Holborn, London Hilton on Park Lane, Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, Sunborn London Yacht Hotel, Starhotels, Templeton Garden, The Mandeville Hotel, The Standard London.

For further information about our Feed Your Mind events, please contact Katie Houghton at katie@internationalhospitality.media / +34 711 02 42 31.