Expedia shipped the AI that answers for your hotel. It also offers your guest the extra night.
Expedia's October 28 release lets its AI answer your guest's questions before and after she books, using her own reservation, and has Hotels.com offer her the extra night as her stay ends
by Markus Busch
Driving the news. Expedia Group put out its fall product release on October 28, with more than 30 features across Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo. Most of it sits on the traveler's side of the trip: packages, airport lounges, Vrbo payments. Two features reach into your hotel.
The first is Property Expert, live on Expedia and Hotels.com in the US, on the web and in the app. A traveler taps "Ask" on a property page and gets an AI answer built from the property details and the guest reviews. On Expedia, the release adds a third source: once she has booked, her own reservation. At its partner conference in May, Expedia announced it for Hotels.com only, for later in the year. It arrived on both.
The answer now follows the booking. Think of the questions that come in the day before arrival. Is breakfast in my rate? Can I check in at 11 p.m.? Is parking extra, and how much?
A guest who booked on Expedia used to send those to the hotel, through Expedia's messages or by email. Someone on your team answered with the reservation open on the screen.
On Expedia, Property Expert answers first now. It reads her booking, your listing and what other guests wrote, and replies on its own. Expedia says the answers let her "confirm what it includes." So if your rate plan says breakfast included and your description says breakfast from $18, the AI has two answers to choose from, and she gets one of them.
The extra night, offered by Hotels.com. The second feature is on the Hotels.com homepage, which now changes with the trip. Near the end of a stay, it shows the guest an option to extend it.
That guest is in your building. One more night has always been a conversation at the front desk, at a rate the desk quotes. Now the app makes the offer on her phone.
The catch. Expedia has answered property questions with AI before. Its Fall Release 2023 introduced property answers, first in English in the Expedia app. What is new is the reservation. The answers now cover the booking itself, and they keep coming after she has booked.
The release gives no figures on how many travelers use either feature. It says nothing about whether a hotel can see the questions or correct an answer. It does not say whether the extended stay has to be at the same hotel, at what rate, or whether it books as a new Hotels.com reservation. Property Expert runs in the US only. The release names no markets for the homepage offer, and it does not say whether the reservation answers also run on Hotels.com.
What it means for hotels. If you sell to American travelers on Expedia, this is a fifteen-minute check. Open the Expedia app, find your property, tap "Ask," and put to it the three questions reception hears most the day before arrival. Write down the answers. Check each one against your rate plans and your listing. Where an answer is wrong, one of the two is usually where it went wrong, and both are yours to fix.
Then look up tomorrow night at your hotel on Hotels.com. Compare it with what your front desk quotes a guest who asks to stay one more night.
Read also: Read before the guest: Booking.com's AI answers before you can · Hotels.com built a business travel mode. The rewards it pays come off your commission.
Enjoying this analysis?* Hospitality.today delivers daily insights on hotel distribution, AI trends, and travel commerce — straight to your inbox. Subscribe for free at Hospitality.today →