A guest's question after your office closes
A guest arrives late and cannot find the parking garage. Your office closed hours ago, so nobody answers.
The guest waits in the car and gets more upset. Tomorrow, that wait may show up in the review.
An AI concierge answers that guest with your own parking steps, even at night. This guide explains what it does, and what to check before you choose one.
What an AI concierge is
An AI concierge is software that writes to your guests for your company. It reads each question and answers from facts you give it.
A hotel has a front desk for this work. A vacation rental company often has only a phone and an inbox.
An AI concierge does not replace your team. It takes the simple questions, so your team has time for the hard ones.
Its jobs, from booking to checkout
Before arrival, it sends the guest the stay details: the address, the check-in time and the check-in steps.
During the stay, it answers the daily questions: the wifi, parking, pool hours and the trash day.
It can also sell paid extras, such as a late checkout, an early check-in or a mid-stay cleaning. A good one checks the next arrival first, so your cleaners keep the time they need.
When a message needs a person, it tells your team.
How it differs from scheduled messages and a guidebook
Scheduled messages go out at set times. Every guest gets the same words, whatever the guest asked. Our guide to Airbnb auto reply explains the tools Airbnb gives you.
A digital guidebook puts your facts on one page. The guest still has to find the answer alone.
An AI concierge reads the question and gives the one answer this guest needs. It can use the same facts as your guidebook.
What it should never do alone
Some messages need a person, such as a refund or a complaint. Your company will have more, such as repairs, injuries or booking changes.
A good AI concierge stops on these and alerts your team. It should let you add your own topics. It also stops when it has no answer. A wrong guess causes real problems, because the guest acts on it.
It should also stay quiet when your team has already answered. Two answers to one question confuse the guest.
Five questions to ask before you choose
Ask every AI concierge the same five questions. Then ask to see the answers in a real chat.
Does it work inside your booking system? If it does, your team sees every message in the inbox it already uses.
Where does each answer come from? You should be able to read every fact and fix a wrong one.
What happens when it has no answer? It should ask your team, then tell the guest it has asked.
What happens after a guest pays for an extra? Ask how a new check-in or checkout time reaches the booking.
Who gets the money? Payments for paid extras should go to your own company's account.
How TravelPal does this for you
TravelPal is the AI concierge for vacation rental companies and hotels. It answers your guests at any hour, in the language each guest writes in.
It answers questions about your units only from saved facts. The facts come from your house manual, your unit details and past conversations. You can search every fact, delete any one and write your own. When no answer is saved, it asks your team and tells the guest it has asked.
A complaint or a refund request stops the AI in that chat, and your team gets an alert. You add your own topics, such as repairs, injuries or booking changes. If the AI's reply is about one of them, it goes to your team as a private note. Your team then answers the guest. If your team answers first, the AI's reply is held back.
Each guest gets a private stay page from one link, with no app and no login. It shows the stay details and the extras the guest can buy. Airbnb guests get the link in their Airbnb messages, and other guests get it by email.
The stay page sells a mid-stay cleaning and a damage waiver. On Guesty, TravelPal also sells late checkout and early check-in at your own prices. Before it offers more time, it checks whether another guest arrives or leaves that same day.
After a card payment, the new time goes onto the booking in Guesty by itself. Card payments go to your own Stripe account.
See the booking systems TravelPal connects to, or book a demo to see it with your own units.