Hotels today have access to more guest and operational data than ever before. But collecting data is no longer the challenge. The real challenge is knowing which signals matter, how to connect them across systems, and how to turn them into action quickly enough to improve the guest experience. That was the focus of Duve’s recent webinar, Data-Driven Guest Experiences: Turning Hotel Data into Better Decisions.
The session brought together three leaders with distinct perspectives:
- David, Co-Founder and CEO, Duve
- Blake Reiter, Director of Hospitality Research, Lighthouse
- Michaela Papenhoff, Founder and Managing Director, h2c GmbH
Together, they explored how hotels can use connected data to reduce friction, personalize the guest journey, improve operational efficiency, and build a stronger foundation for AI.
Why hotel data still doesn’t lead to action
The webinar began with a challenge that feels familiar across the industry: hotels are collecting more data than ever, but much of it still fails to translate into useful action. The issue is not a lack of information. It is the fact that data often sits in disconnected systems, arrives too late, or never reaches the teams that need it most.
Michaela Papenhoff explained that many hotel groups still struggle with siloed systems, weak cross-department sharing, and a lack of clear ownership around data. David built on that point by describing how difficult personalization becomes when guest information is spread across the PMS, CRM, loyalty systems, POS, and communication tools. Even when the data is there, it is often too fragmented to support a smooth guest journey at scale.
The problem has never been the data itself. It’s the workflow around the data.
Blake Reiter
Director of Hospitality Research
Lighthouse
Connected data is what makes personalization possible
A major theme throughout the conversation was that personalization depends on connected data. Hotels cannot create relevant, timely experiences if booking details, arrival information, preferences, and operational context are all living separately.
David gave a practical example of how connected systems help hotels deliver more relevant communication. If a guest is arriving early in the morning, an early check-in offer may make sense. If they are arriving later in the day, other services may be more relevant. The goal is not simply to send more messages. It is to ensure those messages feel timely and useful rather than generic.
Michaela reinforced that connected data is less about collecting more information and more about linking the systems that already matter. When hotels make those insights accessible across teams, they are much better positioned to create a guest journey that feels seamless from pre-arrival through post-stay.
Connected data is less about collecting more information. It’s all about linking the key systems together.
Michaela Papenhoff
Founder and Managing Director
h2c GmbH
The right metrics help hotels act before friction builds
The panel also discussed which metrics matter most when hotels are trying to improve the guest experience. Rather than focusing only on post-stay reporting, the speakers emphasized the importance of metrics that help teams intervene while there is still time to improve the outcome.
David pointed to guest satisfaction at key moments in the stay, response time, guest engagement, and review sentiment. Michaela added operational efficiency, revenue uplift, and staff productivity, stressing that the most useful metrics balance guest experience with business impact. Blake added an important perspective: the best metrics are the ones that arrive early enough to support action, include the right context, and point clearly to a next step.
That idea is especially important for hotel teams overwhelmed by dashboards. A metric only becomes valuable when it helps a team decide what to do next.
A guest experience metric that just lives in a dashboard that no one opens isn’t a metric really. It’s trivia.
Blake Reiter
Director of Hospitality Research
Lighthouse
AI creates value when it reduces manual work
When the conversation turned to AI, the focus stayed practical. The panel agreed that the strongest value today comes from reducing repetitive manual work and helping hotel teams respond faster and more consistently.
Michaela highlighted guest communication, automated messaging, and customer data cleaning as areas where many hotel groups are already seeing value. Blake described how AI can take on repetitive analytical work, helping teams spend less time monitoring systems and more time acting on insights. David connected this directly to hotel operations, showing how digital check-in, AI-supported communication, and automated task handling can reduce queues, speed up service, and improve responsiveness without forcing hotels to add headcount.
The broader opportunity is not just automation for its own sake. It is using AI to remove friction for both guests and staff while making personalization more scalable.
It should save time, should save money, boost that guest experience, boost revenue. So it’s really a win-win.
David Mezuman
Co-Founder and CEO
Duve
How hotels should start becoming more data-driven
To close the webinar, the panel addressed the question many hospitality leaders are asking right now: if becoming more data-driven is a priority for 2026, where should hotels start?
The answer was not to overhaul everything at once. Instead, the speakers encouraged hotels to begin with one clear use case and one meaningful pain point. Blake advised hotels to audit where their data lives and whether they actually trust it. David encouraged teams not to wait for the perfect transformation plan before taking the first step. Michaela brought those ideas together by emphasizing the importance of clarity around priorities, budget, internal alignment, and a roadmap that is realistic for the organization.
Taken together, their message was clear: start small, but think long term. The hotels that move fastest will be the ones that begin building the right connected foundation now.
Start with the clarity on direction and then build on practical people-centered roadmaps to get there.
Michaela Papenhoff
Founder and Managing Director
h2c GmbH
Want to Know More?
Watch the full webinar to hear the full discussion and explore more Duve webinars on guest experience, hotel operations, and hospitality technology.
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About the author
The Duve team comprises hospitality experts specializing in guest experience personalization, operational optimization, and innovative hotel technologies. With deep industry knowledge, they help hospitality providers elevate service, enhance satisfaction, and drive growth.