An AI assistant for independent UK hotels — guests answered in seconds, bookings sent direct.
A hotel chatbot for independent hotels, B&Bs and serviced apartments. It answers the guest questions your team answers all day, and sends ready guests to your own booking engine instead of an OTA.
Why independent hotels lose direct bookings to OTAs
Guests ask about parking, check-in times, dogs, breakfast and availability. They ask on your website, on WhatsApp, in the Booking.com and Expedia inbox, and by email. Most questions have a known answer, but someone still has to type it, often late at night or between check-ins.
When a reply takes hours, the guest books wherever is quickest. For many independents that means an OTA taking roughly 15–25% commission. The direct booking is lost because the OTA answered first, not because the guest preferred it.
Independent hotels are already moving. In a survey of 1,485 European hotels, 41% of independents already use AI and a further 16% plan to. Content generation, chatbots and review analytics are among the main uses.
How it works
- 01
Guest asks
A question arrives on your website chat, WhatsApp or the OTA inbox, in any language.
- 02
AI answers from your content
The assistant replies from the policies, rate rules and FAQs you've approved — nothing invented. If it isn't sure, it says so and passes the conversation to your team.
- 03
Your team approves what matters
Routine answers go straight out; anything sensitive — refunds, complaints, special requests — waits for a person to approve it.
- 04
Ready guests book direct
Guests who are ready are sent to your own booking engine with the dates they asked about, instead of back to the OTA.
What the assistant handles
- Pre-arrival questions: parking, check-in and check-out, luggage, accessibility, pets, breakfast, getting there
- Availability and rate questions, routed to your booking engine rather than quoted from memory
- Replies in the guest's language — the assistant on fais.world answers in 30 languages
- Out-of-hours cover, so the first reply takes seconds, not until the next morning
- Handover to a person, with the conversation so far, whenever the guest or the assistant asks for it
- A clear "I'm an AI assistant" disclosure at the start of every conversation
Works with your property management system and booking engine
The assistant sits on top of your property management system and booking engine — Guesty, Hostaway, Cloudbeds and Mews among them — rather than replacing anything. Your team keeps working where it works today; the audit maps exactly which systems we connect, and in what order.
People stay in control
The AI answers routine questions from content you approve; a person approves anything sensitive, and anything the assistant isn't sure about goes to your team. Every conversation starts with an AI disclosure. See our security and AI policy pages for how we handle data under UK GDPR.
What it costs
Every project starts with an AI Workflow Audit at £1,500, credited to the build. An Assistant Launch for one workflow is £3,500–7,500 and typically goes live in 3–6 weeks; ongoing supervision and support is £249–749 a month.
For our first 5 UK clients, the founding-client programme brings the audit to £500 and the launch to £1,500 with the first month free, in exchange for a named case study.
Try it before you decide: our demo environment is based on a system we built for a 32-unit Kyiv aparthotel.
Sources: Hotel News Resource — survey of 1,485 European hotels (HES-SO) · Softomate Solutions — AI receptionist pricing in the UK
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Read →Frequently asked questions
Is a hotel chatbot worth it for a small independent hotel?
If your team answers the same questions every day or misses enquiries out of hours, usually yes. The audit estimates how many enquiries arrive after hours and how many could move from OTAs to direct bookings, so you see the likely return before paying for a build.
Will guests know they are talking to AI?
Yes. Every conversation opens with a clear AI disclosure, and guests can ask for a person at any point. That is how we build for UK GDPR transparency — and for EU AI Act Article 50, which applies when your guests are in the EU.
Can the assistant take bookings itself?
It sends guests who are ready to your own booking engine with their dates, rather than taking payment in the chat. Payments stay in the systems you already trust, and your team can see every conversation that led to a booking.
What happens when it doesn't know the answer?
It says so and hands the conversation to your team with the full history — by email, WhatsApp or your shared inbox, as agreed in the audit. It never invents a policy, a price or an availability figure; it only answers from content you have approved.
How long does setup take?
Typically 3–6 weeks after the audit. We start with the channel that brings the most enquiries — usually website chat or WhatsApp — then add the OTA inbox once the answers have been reviewed and your team is comfortable with how handovers work.
See it on your own content first.
Send us your website and we'll load it into an assistant before the call, so you judge the result, not a pitch.