Your hotels aren’t static. Guest demand shifts by the hour. Booking windows shrink. Events pop up out of nowhere. Yet some hotel portfolios are still relying on old-school pricing models: fixed rates, rigid rules, and “gut feel” adjustments made once a week (if that).
Static pricing just can’t keep up. It ignores real-time guest behavior. It misses demand signals. And worst of all, it leaves revenue on the table.
AI-powered dynamic pricing, alternatively, is fast and flexible. And it’s built to help hotel groups like yours respond instantly to what’s happening now, not just what happened last year. Here's what you need to know about making pricing decisions with artificial intelligence (AI).
What is dynamic pricing?
Dynamic pricing means your room rates move with the market. Instead of guessing or setting a price and walking away, your prices adjust in real time based on demand, booking pace, compset shifts, guest behavior, and even things like weather or local events.
For years, this kind of pricing was mostly used by online travel agencies (OTAs). But now hotels are getting in on it and seeing results. Fixed-rate strategies just don’t work in a world where demand changes hourly.
Hotel groups especially need pricing models that can flex across a whole portfolio. One-size-fits-all doesn’t work when your properties span different markets, guest profiles, and demand curves. Dynamic pricing gives you the agility to stay competitive everywhere, all the time.
Why dynamic pricing matters for hotel groups:
When you manage multiple properties, you need pricing that can flex across markets, guest types, and demand swings. Dynamic pricing powered by AI helps you:
React instantly to demand across all your properties
Stay competitive in markets where pricing changes by the hour
Adapt to guest behavior like mobile bookings, short lead times, or new patterns
Protect margins during compression periods without leaving money on the table
Free up revenue teams from manual updates and time-wasting spreadsheets
How AI makes pricing decisions smarter (and way faster)
AI is a real solution for hotel revenue teams juggling multiple systems, dozens of data sources, and not enough hours in the day. As Jose Miguel Moreno the Vice President Corporate & MICE Sales from Meliá Hotels International puts it:
“In hotels, we manage different systems with different sources of information. So, it’s interesting to see how AI can collect the different pieces of information, put them together, and give us a solution.”
That’s exactly what AI does. It connects the dots between your PMS, RMS, booking engine, web traffic, market demand, and more so your pricing decisions aren’t just faster, they’re smarter.
Here’s how AI helps your team win:
Cuts through the noise: Pulls insights from messy, disconnected data
Acts fast: Adjusts pricing in real time—no waiting on reports or approvals
Reduces errors: Automates the math (and the stress)
Adds consistency across properties: Even when local teams have different approaches
Supports, not replaces, your team: You still control the strategy. AI just gives you the edge.
Instead of guessing or reacting too late, AI gives your revenue teams the speed and clarity they need to stay ahead.
Want to know more about how to use AI to manage your hotel portfolio? Check out our guide: Mastering AI for Group Business in 2025.
Pricing that reacts to guest behavior and real-time demand
Your guests are telling you what they want all the time. They’re searching from their phones. They’re booking later than ever. They’re skipping your site when rates feel off. The question is: Are your prices reacting in time? With AI, they can.
AI-powered pricing tools tune into guest behavior at a micro level then adjust pricing accordingly, sometimes in minutes.
Real-world example:
A sudden spike in mobile searches for your city? AI bumps mobile-only rates.
A big concert just got announced? Your compset’s already raising prices and AI flags the opportunity.
Booking pace slows down unexpectedly? AI spots the trend before your team sees it in the dashboard.
As Max Spangler from Charlestowne Hotels puts it in “AI brings real benefits to hotels”:
“AI assists in identifying patterns and insights from complex datasets, helping us make informed decisions rapidly and enhancing our ability to adapt to market changes, among many other use cases.”
And at the group level it's even better. AI gives regional and corporate teams better visibility across the portfolio so you can:
Spot demand shifts early across multiple markets
Set pricing guardrails at the brand or group level
Free up local teams to focus on high-impact tasks, not endless rate reviews
You don’t have to control every rate from the top but with AI, you know the right pricing decisions are happening across the board.
7 smart ways hotels increase revenue with AI
AI-powered pricing helps you make faster, smarter decisions that help protect and grow revenue. Here’s how hotels and hotel groups are putting it to work:
1. Automating time-consuming rate updates
Manually updating rates across multiple properties might feel like a never-ending game of catch-up. Revenue managers spend hours crunching numbers, comparing competitors, and trying to predict what’s coming next. They do this while juggling dozens of other tasks.
AI automatically sets prices based on real-time market data, booking patterns, and guest behavior. It constantly scans the landscape, looking at what’s happening right now. That means your pricing can keep pace with demand shifts, competitor moves, and even subtle changes in how guests book.
This automation frees up your revenue team to spend less time in spreadsheets and more time crafting strategies that drive growth, build relationships with local sales teams, or explore new revenue opportunities. In other words, AI handles the grunt work so your people can focus on the big picture.
2. Responding faster to high-demand periods
Demand can spike in a flash. Maybe there’s a last-minute conference announcement, a big concert, or even a sudden travel trend. When that happens, every minute counts. Hotels that wait too long to adjust their prices risk leaving revenue on the table or losing bookings to competitors who act faster.
AI tools monitor real-time signals like booking pace, search volume, and competitors' prices. When demand starts to rise, AI quickly suggests price tweaks to capture that extra revenue without overshooting and scaring guests away.
This means your team can stay ahead of the curve, adjusting rates right when it matters most, without the last-minute scramble or guesswork. Faster, smarter reactions to demand spikes keep your hotels competitive and maximize revenue opportunities as they happen.
3. Spotting and resolving rate parity issues
With so many ways to book (OTAs, direct websites, third-party platforms) keeping prices consistent across all channels is a constant challenge. Even small discrepancies can confuse guests or push them toward a competitor, ultimately costing your hotel revenue.
AI tracks pricing across every channel in real time, spotting mismatches or rate leaks that might slip past human eyes. It alerts your team when rates aren’t aligned, so you can fix issues quickly before they impact bookings.
By maintaining clean, consistent pricing everywhere, hotels build trust with guests and protect revenue, without having to spend hours monitoring each channel manually.
4. Testing mobile-only or last-minute deals
More guests are booking on their phones and often at the last minute. But how do you know when and where to offer special deals without slashing prices across the board?
AI analyzes guest behavior, spotting patterns like spikes in last-minute mobile searches or short booking windows. Using these insights, hotels can test targeted offers like mobile-only discounts or last-minute rates that appeal to specific groups without hurting overall revenue.
This smart approach helps you capture bookings that might otherwise be lost, while keeping your pricing strong for guests booking earlier or through other channels.
5. Adapting pricing by location and demand segment
Not all guests or markets behave the same, and your pricing shouldn’t either. What works for one city or region might not make sense for another, especially when demand varies widely.
AI helps you break down pricing by geography, device type, or booking source, making it easier to tailor rates where they’ll perform best. For example, you might see rising demand in a particular market and adjust rates there without changing prices everywhere else.
This targeted approach lets hotels stay competitive in key areas, attract the right guests, and avoid blanket pricing that misses opportunities or alienates certain segments.
6. Catching early signs of softening demand
Sometimes demand slows down quietly, with subtle signs like fewer bookings or lower website clicks. These small shifts are easy to miss until they turn into a bigger problem.
AI monitors these early warning signals, spotting changes in booking pace or site conversions before they become obvious. By flagging these trends early, AI gives your team a head start to respond whether that means tweaking rates, launching targeted promotions, or shifting marketing dollars to where they’ll do the most good.
Catching demand softening early means you’re not reacting after the fact but staying ahead to keep revenue steady. It’s like having a weather alert for your bookings.
7. Maintaining consistency across the portfolio
Managing pricing across multiple hotels is difficult. Each property has its own market, demand patterns, and quirks. But your overall pricing strategy needs to stay on point to protect your brand and maximize revenue.
AI helps keep pricing aligned across your entire portfolio, making sure strategies fit your big-picture goals while still adapting to local differences. Corporate teams can set smart guardrails like minimum rates or margin targets while individual properties get the flexibility to adjust within those boundaries.
This balance means your hotels stay competitive and consistent, without locking teams into one-size-fits-all pricing that misses local opportunities. AI makes portfolio-wide pricing simpler and smarter.
AI pricing is now
Pricing can’t be set-and-forget anymore. Not when guest behavior changes by the hour and demand shifts faster than your weekly reports can catch up.
AI gives hotel groups and management companies the tools to price smarter. This means reacting in real time, spotting patterns humans might miss, and keeping portfolios competitive without burning out revenue teams.
Whether you’re managing five properties or fifty, dynamic pricing powered by AI helps you move faster, stay sharper, and stop leaving revenue on the table. Next up, discover what open pricing is and how to implement it.
Want to know more about how to use AI to manage your hotel portfolio? Check out our guide: Mastering AI for Group Business in 2025.
