Mirai warns hotels not to rely on AI marketing for direct bookings

For 2025, the firm urged hoteliers to look to other means as well

Hoteliers wanting to drive direct sales "shouldn’t rely solely on rapid AI-based placements" for their marketing strategy in 2025 warned Mirai’s Pablo Delgado during an executive panel at Phocuswright in Arizona last week.

Instead the Mirai CEO for the Americas recommeded that hotels focus on brand protection campaigns and established social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

When asked for Mirai’s view on the impact of AI on direct hotel sales, Delgado confirmed that “incorporating AI to gain first-mover advantage should be on your 2025 agenda, but just not the sole objective for the year". 

The panel looked at how AI is shaking up the world of online travel sales and also included TripAdvisor’s president Kristen Dalton and Sojern’s chief revenue officer Noreen Henry.

During the panel Delgado outlined how Mirai – whose technology helps hoteliers maximise revenues in the direct channel – is advising clients to “learn and innovate if they have enough budget, particularly to participate in the planning stage or upper funnel and especially when it comes to the new placements (social and AI-based tools) so they have the first mover advantage when the time does finally come”.

However, he pointed out too that the marketing landscape is still dominated by Google – for advertising, Google Hotels and organic search – as well as by the big OTAs. 

“This is likely to continue for a very long time, they have significant resources and inbuilt advantages such as the data they have, the great teams they have and so on," he said.

"Nor should we rule out that AI developments might mean that other online players like Amazon or Meta or Microsoft could make an entry into the travel space too”.