From Spreadsheets to Strategy: How AI Is Transforming Hotel Revenue Management in the Hospitality Industry
FLEXIPASS #HospitalityTechInsights
AI isn’t replacing revenue managers—it’s giving them back time, clarity, and control.
AI has been one of the biggest topics in hospitality over the last few years. And for good reason also in Revenue Management which once was dominated by spreadsheets, gut feeling, and manual rules, and now is undergoing a fundamental shift.
In one of the recent Flexipass “Tech Partner Insight Sessions”, Lindsay from TakeUp was giving some insights about how AI is changing the way hotels price rooms, react to demand, and stay competitive in a fast-moving market.
This conversation revealed a simple truth: AI isn’t replacing revenue managers—it’s giving them back time, clarity, and control.
Source: SpeedTalk with FLEXIPASS + TakeUp | Tap image to watch!
From Static Rules to Continuous Learning
Traditional revenue management relied heavily on preset rules and historical data. Many revenue managers still remember the reality all too well: endless Excel sheets, daily rate checks, and decisions based as much on instinct as on data.
AI flips that model.
Instead of static rules, AI introduces continuous learning based on real guest behavior. It evaluates booking activity in real time and adjusts pricing dynamically—while keeping a human revenue strategist in the loop to ensure decisions align with the property’s goals.
AI doesn’t guess. It observes, learns, and adapts—constantly.
Aves opted to use technology providers such as DropIn and FLEXIPASS and saw an impressive improvement in their check-in process. The check-in friction vanished. The flow clicked into place. And the hotel finally delivered an arrival experience that felt as fast and refreshing as the destination itself.
What Hotels Can Expect in the First 3–6 Months after implementing a AI Revenue Management solution
AI isn’t a magic switch, but hotels adopting it typically see meaningful improvements early on:
Early Results Hotels Commonly See:
More consistent pricing across channels
Faster reactions to booking pace changes and confidence to test rates that may have felt “too risky” before
Less time spent manually adjusting rates every day
The biggest shift isn’t just financial—it’s operational. Revenue managers and GMs regain time previously spent on repetitive tasks and can focus on strategy instead.
Who Benefits Most from AI Revenue Management?
While AI can benefit virtually every hotel, independent hotels often see the fastest and biggest impact.
Why?
They are still heavily reliant on manual processes
They have fewer approval layers
They operate lean teams where time savings matter most
AI doesn’t just improve pricing—it reduces key-person risk. Pricing no longer depends on one individual remembering to update rates every single day.
Automation vs Control: Clearing the Biggest Fear
AI works best when it handles execution, not strategy. This means that the worry of losing control is limited.
Humans Still Control:
Overall pricing strategy and brand positioning
Risk tolerance and long-term business goals
Guest experience priorities
AI executes within those boundaries—faster and more consistently than any human could.
It also lacks context humans have: renovations, staffing challenges, ownership priorities. That’s why the human role remains critical.
The result? Revenue managers can move away from constant rate checking and into higher-value strategic decision-making.
Beyond Pricing: Insights That Change the Business
Beyond pricing, AI opens up a much deeper understanding of how demand actually behaves. Instead of looking at performance only in hindsight, teams can see clear patterns in seasonality and day-of-week performance, understand how booking windows are shifting, spot changes in length-of-stay behavior, and clearly distinguish between true high-demand and low-demand periods.
More importantly, these insights aren’t just interesting but they are actionable. Hotels can align marketing and promotional efforts with real demand signals rather than assumptions, adjust minimum and maximum stay rules with far more confidence, and plan staffing and operational decisions based on what the data is actually showing on the ground.
At that point, AI becomes more than just a pricing tool. Used correctly, it turns into a strategic advantage that helps the revenue team.
Will Hotels Without AI Stay Competitive?
The honest answer: it’s already getting harder.
Markets move faster than humans can track manually. Rule-based pricing is often reactive, adjusting only after demand has already shifted. Hotels using AI are capturing higher rates during compression periods and protecting demand during softer periods—without adding operational burden.
Over time, that consistency compounds.
Hotels not using AI for pricing are so to say standing still and might fall behind in the future.
Final Thoughts on AI and revenue management solutions
AI isn’t about replacing revenue managers. It’s about empowering them.
By combining human strategy with machine execution, hotels gain speed, confidence, and clarity in an increasingly complex market. And as demand patterns continue to shift faster than ever, that combination is quickly becoming not just an advantage—but a necessity.
