Booking inquiries, concierge recommendations, late check-ins, chat answers when reception closes.
Hotels have a classic asymmetry problem: reception is staffed during the day, evenings and nights are uncovered. Exactly when booking inquiries come in, and often disappear to Booking.com because the direct contact stays silent. The chat agent answers 24/7 on the hotel website, handles standard questions (rooms, breakfast, Wi-Fi, directions), captures booking inquiries and hands complex cases (group, special request) to reception.
Notice under EU AI Act Article 50:From the first message, the chat agent shows it's an AI. For complex questions, the agent hands off to your team.How we use AI
What does the Chat Agent do for hotels?
rinqo's chat agent for hotels handles booking inquiries, concierge questions and late check-in requests directly on the hotel website. Multilingual (DE/EN/FR/IT/ES), GDPR-compliant on Hetzner Germany. Guests get their answer directly on your website instead of via a booking portal.
EU-Sovereign · GDPR · AI Act
Made in Germany. Hosted in Europe. The AI processing stays in the EU too, without US providers.
GDPR-compliant on EU servers
All calls, transcripts and knowledge data are processed encrypted on Hetzner Cloud in Falkenstein and Nuremberg, with data processing in the EU. A DPA under Art. 28 GDPR is in place.
Hosting: Hetzner Online GmbH, Germany, ISO 27001:2022 certified (Falkenstein, Nuremberg)
AI processing runs with European providers in the EU, not with US corporations like OpenAI, Google or Amazon. No training on your data.
Speech recognition with EU processing and speech synthesis from a German provider, customers receive the named provider list in the dashboard.
Auto-deletion: 30 days default, adjustable up to 365 days depending on your package
AI Act Art. 50, met by default
From 2 August 2026 every AI system must disclose to end users at the start of the conversation that it is AI-based. rinqo makes this the default setting in every channel, from first contact.
Voice: mandatory disclosure as first audio frame, before any answer
Chat/Email: AI label in footer and subject
Synthetic audio will be machine-watermarked once Code-of-Practice (June 2026) ships
Penalty: up to €15M or 3 % global annual turnover, the lower amount for SMEs
Sources: GDPR Art. 28 + 32 · EU AI Act Regulation 2024/1689 · DSK guidance on artificial intelligence and data protection (German data protection conference, 2024). This overview does not constitute legal advice.
Why hotels need an AI agent.
Germany has 40,158 accommodation businesses. HOTREC measures 50.9 % of European overnight stays as booked direct; the market share of the portals has climbed from 19.7 % in 2013 to 29.6 %. Enquiries arrive late in the evening, when nobody is at reception any more, and then move on to a portal. A chat agent on the hotel website answers questions about rooms, rates, location and breakfast at any hour and takes the booking request directly for your hotel.
Reception unmanned at night and late evening, inquiries go straight to Booking.com.
Multilingual: international guests write in EN/FR/IT/ES; reception teams mostly only DE.
Standard questions (breakfast, Wi-Fi, check-in time, directions) clog reception during the day.
Last-minute weekend inquiries processed Monday, the booking is long gone.
Every booking via a portal incurs commission; every direct booking avoids that deduction.
How the chat agent works for hotels.
40,158
accommodation businesses in Germany, VAT statistics 2024
Room and rate information from your own documents, availability through a connection to your booking system
Concierge questions: breakfast, Wi-Fi, check-in, parking, directions, pet policy
Explain how late check-in and self check-in work
Restaurant recommendations from the area (curated via knowledge base)
Group-booking inquiries qualified and handed to the sales team
Multilingual: DE/EN/FR/IT/ES default without separate staff
What the Chat Agent can do
Embeddable as a website widget
Answers questions in real time
Guides visitors through your offering
Captures contact details and inquiries
Hands over to your team when needed
Learns from your knowledge base
Frequently asked questions for hotels.
There is no ready-made integration today. Apaleo and Mews have open APIs, so availability lookups can be set up as a connection, either yourself through rinqo's REST API or by us on request. For smaller properties, a webhook that sends every booking request as an email or an entry to your reservation tool is enough. The agent does not create binding bookings.
That depends on your website and your guests, so we don't promise a figure. The mechanism: guests researching late at night get an immediate answer in the chat and can enquire directly with you instead of using a portal the next morning.
The agent recognises complex patterns (multiple rooms, "large group", "wedding", "accessible", "pet", "catering") and routes them automatically to the sales inbox, with request summary and contact details. You receive the qualified inquiry, and the guest is told when to expect your reply, because you set that promise yourself.
The agent writes in 17 European languages, including German, English, French, Italian and Spanish. It detects the language of the first message and replies in that language.
Yes. You set wording, tone and standard answers. Boutique hotel: refined tone, curated recommendations. Family hotel: warm, simple, activity tips. Business hotel: precise, efficient, focus on Wi-Fi/late checkout/grab-and-go breakfast. All editable in the dashboard, changes live instantly.
Founder of rinqo. Builds a company memory where an organisation's knowledge comes together and stays available, and the AI agents that work from it: on the phone, in the inbox, in chat, in marketing and in further roles. Writes here about bringing AI into companies, about data protection, and about what holds up in daily operation. Developed in Germany, processed in the EU, no US providers.
