Mews at Skift Data +AI Summit 2026
Skift Data + AI Summit 2026
Richard Valtr, Founder, Mews
Moderated by Rafat Ali, CEO/Founder, Skift
Valtr said hotel CEOs have finally begun to take technology seriously in the past two to three years, but the AI conversation has stalled at cost reduction. The bigger opportunity, he said, is revenue: front-desk staff selling experiences, arrivals and departures used to build loyalty, services plugged into the guest flow. Both prizes are blocked by the same problem. Hotel data is too fragmented and too coarse for AI to work on top of. CRM, PMS, and distribution don’t talk to each other; room categories that lump west-facing and south-facing rooms together aren’t precise enough for personalization. Fix the data first, he argued.
- Front-desk staff should work as “sales people of experiences, more sales people of loyalty” rather than admin doing the modern version of punching attendance.
- Hotels treat room 307 and room 304 as the same category even when one is west-facing and another south-facing. “That might not be important, but it is important for AI.”
- Valtr agreed with the stance that PMS, RMS, CRS, CRM, and POS acronyms are invented by software companies to sell more software: “That’s not how hoteliers think, that’s not how consumers think.”
- Hotels still structure stays around a fixed 3pm check-in, 11am checkout “night” for a 20-hour product: “No guest has ever asked to be checked in at 3pm.”
If your AI investment is being justified internally as labor savings, you’re underselling the revenue case and overselling what’s possible. The constraint is data architecture, not model choice. AI bolted onto a fragmented CRM, PMS, and distribution stack won’t deliver either.
skift.
