Guide
AI automation agencies for hotels compared (2026)
Anyone looking for AI for a hotel meets two kinds of party: platforms that take over a defined piece of work, and agencies that assess the operation and build. Below are four parties that existed in September 2026, with what they say they do.
How this was written down
Every description comes from the party's own website, read on 11 September 2026. We copy no figures that are not printed there, we name no prices that are not printed there, and we pass no judgement on what we have not used ourselves. The link sits next to each entry so you can read it back.
Guide
Four parties, in their own words
Viqal
Where they sit: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Viqal automates guest messages over WhatsApp, SMS and other channels. The company positions itself as more than a chatbot: its own site describes actions inside the PMS, such as extending a booking or a question about the bill, and handing the conversation to staff with the full context once it cannot resolve something itself. The compliance policy states that the AI is built to escalate to a member of staff when that is appropriate.
Guest messaging automation for hotels via WhatsApp, SMS and other channels.
Who for: Hotel groups and operators, and independent or boutique houses.
Read on their own site: viqal.com
Straiv
Where they sit: Stuttgart, Germany
Straiv digitises the guest journey from check in to check out. The site groups the offer in three blocks: process, with online check in, digital doors and payment, guest communication, and selling during the stay. The aim they state themselves is to free staff from routine work.
The Digital Guest Journey for Hotels.
Who for: Independent hotels, hotel groups and serviced apartments.
Read on their own site: straiv.io
HiJiffy
Where they sit: Vidigueira, Portugal
HiJiffy brings guest conversations from web chat, social channels, WhatsApp and the OTA inboxes together in one inbox. The site says the AI handles up to ninety per cent of conversations itself and routes the rest to the right team, with context and a suggested reply. They also name per source visibility into where an answer came from, and measures against invented answers.
The Guest Communications Platform for Hotel Groups.
Who for: Hotel groups first, alongside independent houses, resorts, hostels and glamping.
Read on their own site: hijiffy.com
Digital Dialog
Where they sit: London, United Kingdom
Digital Dialog is not a product but a consultancy. They walk a hotel department by department, from front office and marketing to revenue, food and beverage, housekeeping, HR and finance, look for the manual work there and then carry out the change. They state that they sell no software and take no vendor commissions.
We do not sell software and we do not take vendor commissions.
Who for: Hotels, boutique resorts, spa and wellness, and leisure operators.
Read on their own site: digitaldialog.co.uk
Where hosp. sits in this
We are not a platform you switch on that does the same thing at every house. hosp. builds per house, on the systems that already run there, and not only around the guest.
- Four domains, not one channel
- Guest communication, operations, revenue and back office. A large part of the work a hotel spends a day on never appears in a guest conversation.
- Built to measure per house
- Every system writes and plans the way your team does. We start with an assessment and build in phases after that.
- Human control as an agreement
- Someone on your team always keeps the final say over outgoing communication, and that stays so until the trust is there.
- Privacy on paper
- Hosting inside the EU is available, guest data trains no model, and the data processing agreement is part of the proposal as standard. Of the four parties above, none puts a statement about the location of the data on the pages we read.
Four questions that make the difference visible
- Does this take over only the guest conversation, or also the planning, the reporting and the administration behind it?
- Does it run on the systems your house already uses, or does it ask for another system next to them?
- Who approves what goes out to the guest, and can you set that yourself?
- Where does your guest data sit, who owns it, and does it train a model?
Would you like to know which work in your house could run without manual steps first?
A first conversation takes half an hour and commits you to nothing.
What an AI automation agency for hospitality does