For decades, hotels have focused primarily on selling rooms.
Spas, restaurants, cabanas, children’s programs and other experiences often operated as separate businesses, each with its own reservation system—or, in some cases, no digital booking system at all.
That fragmented model is beginning to change.
As travelers increasingly value experiences and expect greater personalization, hotels have an opportunity to manage the entire guest journey, not simply the room reservation.
Shawn Tarter, CEO of RealTime Reservation, believes the industry’s next phase will combine guest preferences, ancillary bookings and artificial intelligence in a single connected platform.
“When we started out, we said, ‘Why can’t I plan my vacation and have a cabana waiting for me, the spa booked, the kids at the kids club and the restaurant reservations already done?’” Tarter said in a recent interview.
The technology to deliver that experience is becoming more attainable. However, achieving it will require hotels to connect systems, improve their data and convince travelers that sharing their preferences will produce meaningful value.
The Problem With A Fragmented Hotel Experience
RealTime Reservation began in 2014 with a focus on ancillary revenue and operational efficiency. Tarter saw hotels relying on manual processes to reserve services beyond the guest room. As specialized platforms emerged, they generally addressed individual categories such as restaurants, spas or recreational activities.
That digitized some experiences without necessarily connecting them.
A guest might book a massage through one system, reserve a restaurant through another and call the hotel to request a cabana. The traveler is left managing multiple confirmations, while employees may lack a complete picture of the guest’s plans.
RealTime Reservation has spent years building reservation capabilities across several categories. Its combination with hospitality guest-experience platform STAY expanded the company’s reach to approximately 2,500 hotels globally, according to Tarter. STAY’s technology focuses on the guest’s on-property experience, including mobile applications, messaging and housekeeping requests.
The larger objective is to combine pre-arrival planning and the on-property experience within one ecosystem.
Tarter compares the desired experience to an Amazon shopping cart: Guests should be able to select multiple activities, see them on one itinerary and complete one checkout rather than visit several independent platforms.
Pre-Arrival Planning Creates Value For Guests And Hotels
Many travelers still arrive at a resort and ask what activities are available. By that point, the most desirable options may already be booked.
A popular cabana, spa treatment, fitness class or restaurant can fill well before check-in. Other experiences require advance preparation. A hotel may need two days to create a custom birthday cake or several days to arrange an appearance by a tennis instructor, chef or local expert.
“We want to get the guests involved in the journey before they get there,” Tarter said. “The more we can get the guests involved before they arrive, all their planning is handled in one place.”
For travelers, the benefit is less friction and less fear of missing out. For hotels, earlier engagement creates additional time to sell experiences, manage inventory and coordinate outside providers.
It can also help hotels move beyond a narrow focus on occupancy and room rates. Two hotels with identical occupancy may have very different ancillary-revenue opportunities based on who is staying there. A property filled with conference attendees, for example, may have unused pool and spa capacity that could be made available to local day guests.
In this model, yield management extends beyond the room to the restaurant, spa, cabana and other revenue centers.
Clean Data Comes Before Artificial Intelligence
AI could eventually make hotel planning far more intuitive. A traveler might tell a hotel that he prefers an early workout, a healthy breakfast at 8:30 a.m. and an afternoon massage. The system could then recommend—or potentially reserve—an itinerary based on availability and the guest’s prior behavior.
Tarter views that as a realistic direction for the industry, but he repeatedly emphasized that AI depends on accurate, connected data.
“Data has to be perfect,” he said. “The data lake being perfect, the reservation engines being the same—you put a layer of AI on top of it, and now you’re finding every opportunity that can exist.”
A hotel might identify an early riser and recommend morning activities rather than late-night entertainment. AI could also improve operations behind the scenes. Tarter offered the example of a restaurant using ordering patterns to predict how long a table will remain occupied. Certain shared appetizers may add time to the meal, allowing the host stand to give walk-in guests more accurate wait estimates.
Some of these applications may resemble advanced analytics more than futuristic AI. The important change is the speed and scale at which hotels can identify patterns and act on them.
Personalization Still Requires Permission And Judgment
Connected personalization creates an unavoidable question: How much information will travelers share?
Tarter said RealTime Reservation keeps hotel and brand information separate and follows GDPR requirements, including procedures for deleting guest data. At the same time, he sees more travelers opting to retain or share their profiles when doing so makes future bookings easier.
That trade-off will be central to hospitality personalization. Consumers may be willing to share when the payoff is obvious: fewer forms, more relevant recommendations and a trip designed around their needs.
Hotels must also avoid over-personalization. A guest’s previous behavior may reflect the preferences of a former travel companion rather than the guest. Automatically referencing a favorite drink, restaurant or activity without context could create an awkward experience.
The strongest systems will likely recommend thoughtfully, confirm preferences and give travelers control rather than making assumptions.
From Selling Rooms To Curating Time
The bigger opportunity is to redefine what a hotel sells. Travelers are not merely purchasing a place to sleep. They are purchasing a limited number of vacation days with family and friends.
“When I go on vacation with my family, I want this to be the best vacation ever,” Tarter said. “I have seven days, my kids are getting older, and I have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If I knew I could have ordered that, I would have done it six months earlier.”
That perspective changes the role of ancillary revenue. A cabana, private lesson, children’s activity or special dinner is not simply an upsell. Properly timed and personalized, it can become a defining part of the trip.
The future Tarter describes removes intake forms and scattered confirmations. Guests communicate their interests, receive a curated itinerary, make one payment and arrive with their plans already organized. They can then modify or cancel activities through a single interface.
Hotels that create this connected journey can potentially increase revenue, improve operating efficiency and deliver a better guest experience at the same time. AI will help, but the competitive advantage will come from using it to give travelers something more valuable than another recommendation: more control over their time.