Hotels pay commission on every portal booking, while direct calls at lunch or after 7 PM go to voicemail. Your agent picks up, answers standard questions from your own documents and takes down reservation requests in full, so your front desk can confirm them.
Notice under EU AI Act Article 50:On the first ring, the agent says clearly: you're talking to an AI. Just ask, and the agent connects you to a human.How we use AI
What does the AI phone assistant do for hotels?
The AI phone assistant for hotels answers calls around the clock, handles guest questions about breakfast, parking and check-in from your own documents and takes reservation requests with travel dates, room category and number of guests. Your front desk confirms the booking; the agent deliberately does not take card details over the phone.
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.
The VAT statistics count 40,158 accommodation businesses in Germany for 2024. Calls peak in the late morning and early evening, exactly when reception is handing over the shift. HOTREC measures 50.9 % of European overnight stays as booked direct; the average market share of the portals has climbed from 19.7 % in 2013 to 29.6 %. Whoever cannot get through books through a portal instead. An AI agent picks up precisely those calls and turns them into requests your front desk can confirm directly.
Lunch and evening callers frequently land in voicemail
OTA commissions cut into the room rate on every portal booking
Breakfast, parking, pets, the same questions every day
International guests call in 5 languages, the front desk speaks 2
How the phone agent works for hotels.
Your agent answers calls without a keypad menu, in the languages you enable. For a reservation request it takes down arrival, departure, room category, number of guests and contact details, reads them back for confirmation and passes the request to your front desk with a summary. If your booking system has an open API, availability lookups can be set up as a connection. Standard questions about breakfast, parking, pets or check-in are answered from your house rules. Complaints, cancellation requests or group enquiries go to the front desk.
40,158
accommodation businesses in Germany, VAT statistics 2024
Move the sliders. The starting values are rough orientation, not a measurement — put your own numbers in.
100
25%
€250
30%
~108Missed calls per month
€8,063Lost revenue per month
€96,756Lost revenue per year
rinqo picks up every call. At night, on weekends, always.
What your agent does for hotels
Take down reservation requests in full: dates, room category, guests
Take down change requests for existing bookings and pass them on
Standard questions (breakfast, parking, check-in, Wi-Fi, pets)
Directions and arrival info
Take down spa and restaurant requests
Multilingual service in the languages you enable
What the Phone Agent can do
Answers common questions automatically
Books appointments directly in your calendar
Qualifies inquiries and captures contact details
Routes complex cases to your team
Speaks 17+ languages
Learns from your website and documents
Honest answers to real concerns.
The four questions every practice owner asks us before they start.
Does the agent take credit card details?
No, and that is deliberate. Card numbers do not belong in the recording or transcript of an AI conversation, and card payments are subject to strict security rules. Payment and guarantees run through your booking engine or the front desk.
How does the agent handle cancellations and refunds?
The agent explains your cancellation terms from your own documents and passes cancellation requests and refund questions to the front desk with a summary. It does not change anything in your booking system.
What if the front desk team wants to take over a call?
Yes. If you set up call forwarding, the agent transfers calls to the front desk. You can see every conversation, with transcript, in the dashboard.
Frequently asked questions for hotels.
There is no ready-made integration with a hotel booking system 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. The agent does not create binding bookings in your booking system.
The agent speaks 17 European languages, including German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. You decide which ones it uses on the phone; it replies in the caller's language.
The agent passes complaints to the front office manager, either by transferring the call or by email with a summary. You decide when: for example for complaints, refunds, weddings or group enquiries.
Multi-channel for your industry
rinqo for Hotels, all channels
Telephone, chat and email from one platform: business case, ROI, GDPR and integrations.
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.
