The Complete Guide to Using AI in the Hospitality Industry in Belgium in 2025

Belgian hoteliers can't ignore AI in 2025: Adyen's Hospitality Index finds 29% of Belgian travellers used AI to book summer trips and 33% of local hospitality businesses expect AI search tools to reshape the sector, while operators also wrestle with a sharp rise in payment fraud (42% reporting increases) - so personalization and secure payments must travel together.

AI-powered chatbots, smart reservation engines and inventory systems are already lifting guest interactions and cutting waste, helping teams punch above their weight as staffing squeezes persist; Lightspeed's roundup shows how tech can enhance the human touch without replacing it.

For Belgian properties, the smart move is to pair practical skills with strategy - learn usable AI techniques for day-to-day ops or productize guest experiences - and build GDPR-aware workflows that turn noisy social feeds into a 59% faster route to inspiration for guests.

Read the Adyen report and Lightspeed perspectives to see what's working now.

"AI technology has become incredibly important to guests looking for destination inspiration and quick, fun, and personalized itineraries, especially as summer vacations arrive," said Phil Crawford, Global Head of Hospitality at Adyen.

For Belgian hoteliers the fundamentals of AI are practical and immediate: it's the set of tools that automates repetitive work, turns messy guest data into actionable profiles, and scales personalised service without blowing the budget - think 24/7 chatbots, LLM-driven messaging, dynamic pricing and predictive operations that schedule housekeeping “just in time” and cut waste.

Local industry voices at the Belgium Hospitality Club's “AI meets Hospitality” event stressed that AI isn't a replacement for people but a way to “do more with less,” helping teams answer night‑shift calls, surface revenue opportunities, and craft offers that feel bespoke; Lighthouse and Bruges-based Stardekk are examples of Belgian platforms bringing these capabilities to commercial teams.

At the same time, the key enabler is clean, unified data: without it, personalization and pricing engines can't deliver value. Read the Belgium Hospitality Club event write-up for local context and see Revinate's guide on using AI to organise guest data and scale personalisation for concrete, hotel‑level examples.

"AI is the key to a personalised guest experience" - Ivo Minjauw, CPO of Lighthouse.

Belgium's AI strategy is deliberately multi-layered and practical - a federal push (AI4Belgium) to set ethics, skills and uptake priorities sits alongside regionally funded programmes that hotels and hospitality tech partners can actually tap: Flanders channels an annual AI budget (about EUR 32 million) into research, company support and training, Wallonia runs DigitalWallonia4.ai with roughly EUR 18 million per year to accelerate SME pilots, and Brussels backs AI R&D and incubation via Innoviris (around EUR 22 million invested since 2017).

That architecture is designed to move AI from curiosity to scale by combining tax and R&D incentives, open-data infrastructure (data.gov.be, regional data portals) and workforce upskilling - exactly the levers needed for hotels to pilot personalization, smarter pricing or fraud‑mitigation with lower upfront risk.

National frameworks emphasise trustworthy, human-centred AI and practical support for adoption, while industry research shows Belgian firms favour open innovation and startup collaboration to speed implementation.

For hoteliers, the strategy's lesson is clear: align pilots with regional calls, use available coaching and tax tools, and connect to the ecosystem to turn promising AI experiments into repeatable operational wins.

“AI technology has become incredibly important to guests looking for destination inspiration and quick, fun, and personalized itineraries, especially as summer vacations arrive,” said Phil Crawford, Global Head of Hospitality at Adyen.

Belgian hoteliers piloting AI in 2025 must treat data protection as the operational foundation: EU GDPR rules apply to any processing of guest data, so hotels need clear lawful bases for profiling, consent for marketing, and robust plans to honour rights such as access, correction, portability and erasure within statutory timeframes (typically one month) - breaches also must be reported promptly (the 72‑hour rule can force overnight incident-management).

Practical steps from industry guides include running a full data audit to map where guest names, payment details, loyalty profiles and even dietary notes live, tightening vendor contracts with Data Processing Agreements and standard contractual clauses for transfers outside the EU, and training front‑desk and marketing teams to limit access to PII; appointing a Data Protection Officer is recommended for larger groups.

Belgian specifics matter too: hotels aren't currently subject to a general e‑invoicing mandate, but monthly statistical reporting to Statbel and guest reporting to tourism authorities remain statutory obligations, so integrations and processes must reflect both privacy and reporting duties.

Failure to comply carries real consequences (fines up to 4% of turnover or €20 million for serious breaches), so combine legal safeguards with simple tech measures - encryption, role‑based access and fast vendor SLAs - to make AI useful without turning a data mistake into an existential risk.

Read a practical GDPR checklist for hotels and Belgium‑specific compliance notes to align policy with daily operations.

The economic case for AI in Belgian hospitality has moved from “interesting” to tangible: Adyen's 2025 index shows 29% of Belgian travellers used AI to book summer trips (up 74% from 2024), while roughly four in ten accommodation providers reported rising payment‑fraud attempts - a reminder that discovery, payments and fraud prevention must be joined up (Adyen 2025 Hospitality & Travel Report).

At the same time, European and Belgian signals point to measurable returns: EY finds 56% of organisations saved costs or increased profits from AI (average effect €6.24M) and FinTech Belgium reports almost 45% of institutions expect AI investments to at least break even in 2025, which suggests realistic payback horizons when pilots are scoped for value.

Market forecasts for AI in hospitality and a growing Belgian loyalty market (approaching US$893M in 2025) create clear monetisation routes - dynamic pricing, personalised loyalty offers and automated guest messaging - that translate guest intent into repeat bookings.

The practical implication for Belgian hoteliers: start with focused pilots that link pricing, loyalty and secure payments, measure uplift with simple KPIs, and scale the wins; a one‑page dashboard that turns online interest into a confirmed booking can quickly make the ROI visible.

For regional productivity context and benchmarking, see the EY European AI Barometer 2025.

"AI technology has become incredibly important to guests looking for destination inspiration and quick, fun, and personalized itineraries, especially as summer vacations arrive," said Phil Crawford, Global Head of Hospitality at Adyen.

Core AI use cases for Belgian hotels range from guest‑facing chatbots that boost direct bookings to integrated operational automations that shave hours off routine work: deploy a hotel chatbot on web, WhatsApp and phone to handle 24/7 multilingual FAQs, mobile check‑in and simple upsells (HiJiffy's examples show faster responses, high read‑rates and even weekly time savings for reception teams), connect bots to PMS/CRM for personalised offers and loyalty nudges, use voice and web bots to capture bookings and reduce call queues, and automate service tickets so housekeeping and maintenance act “just in time.” Real-world case studies underline the payoff - chatbots can deflect the majority of routine queries, cut handle times and lower abandonment rates - while Deloitte Belgium's Accor project demonstrates how combining cloud telephony and AI with human agents scales personalised service across large portfolios.

Specialist vendors (from niche providers to enterprise platforms) supply prebuilt hospitality workflows, but success in Belgium hinges on multilingual training, tight PMS integration and careful KPI tracking so pilots translate into measurable revenue and guest satisfaction gains; picture a virtual concierge that answers “where's the nearest tram?” in Dutch, French or English and immediately upsells a city tour - small moments that add up to meaningful revenue and happier teams.

Read Deloitte's Accor case study, HiJiffy's chatbot examples, and Kindly's Thon Hotel work for practical implementation ideas.

"We have a mix of advanced bot and a human touch to personalise the conversation with our guests." - Patrice Merrien, Accor Telecom Director – Sales & Distribution

Belgian hoteliers building a pragmatic AI stack in 2025 will find a tight ecosystem of PMS, RMS and payments partners ready to plug into local operations: Mews' recent Atomize integration turns revenue management into a generative‑AI service that can “price by the hour, day, or month,” automate pricing for roughly 70% of users via Autopilot and even “monetize every square meter” from rooms to meeting spaces and parking (see the Mews Atomize integration press release).

That native pairing matters in Belgium where unified guest data and multilingual workflows are essential: Mews' platform (12,500 customers across 85+ countries) and its Marketplace lets properties connect to hundreds - over 1,000 - of specialised tools and bespoke apps to handle bookings, upsells and back‑office automation (Mews Marketplace overview via HospitalityNet).

For payments and fraud protection, integrated gateways shorten the path from discovery to secure booking - see the Adyen hospitality payments partner directory - which helps Belgian teams reduce PCI scope and offer local payment methods.

Think of the result as a modular toolkit: a PMS + RMS + payments stack that lets a small city hotel set dynamic prices for a last‑minute meeting room, push tailored loyalty offers and close payment fraud gaps without rebuilding the entire IT estate.

"This will be the first RMS built to monetize every square meter of your property - from rooms to meeting spaces, parking to co-working desks," said Alexander Edström, Senior Director of Global Business Development at Mews.

Implementation in Belgium must put people and practical skills first: combine short, online modules for busy reception and revenue teams with focused leadership immersion so managers can champion pilots that are multilingual and GDPR‑aware.

Top hospitality executive programmes show the pattern - Cornell's AI in Hospitality path blends five‑and‑a‑half days of hands‑on work (participants bring a laptop and use tools like ChatGPT, bigML and Zapier) with real executive panels to turn concepts into immediate operational tasks (eCornell AI in Hospitality professional development program), while its online Hospitality Management and Leadership certificates let property teams learn in short weekly blocks and apply projects back on the job (eCornell Hospitality Management and Leadership online certificate).

For Belgian hotels that need to move quickly, build a playbook: 1) train front‑line staff on prompt usage and data hygiene so chatbots and messaging stay compliant; 2) upskill revenue managers on AI‑assisted pricing and integrations; 3) run owner‑level workshops (the General Managers and Leadership paths provide templates) to lock governance, vendor SLAs and privacy checks into every pilot.

Picture a night clerk testing multilingual prompts on a laptop between shifts while a morning report shows measurable booking uplifts - small, repeatable skills like that scale faster than sprawling theory.

To attract and retain the right profiles, pair these learning steps with GDPR‑compliant hiring and internal upskilling campaigns that speak Dutch, French and English (GDPR-compliant recruitment strategies for hospitality in Belgium).

Responsible AI for Belgian hotels in 2025 means treating fraud, privacy and guest trust as design constraints rather than afterthoughts: roughly four in ten accommodation providers report rising payment‑fraud attempts, so any AI that speeds discovery or personalisation must sit on a payments strategy that prevents abuse without turning away real guests.

Adyen's 2025 Hospitality & Travel Report highlights both the threat and a practical response - AI fraud tools like Adyen Uplift with Protect can cut false positives by about 86%, letting genuine customers book without unnecessary friction - and that trade‑off is the ethical core of deployment (Adyen 2025 Hospitality & Travel Report).

At the same time, operators must combine machine learning with human oversight, harden PCI and tokenisation flows, and recognise regulatory limits on cross‑merchant data sharing that can blunt detection efforts; industry analysis shows hybrid ML + analyst workflows and clearer data‑sharing frameworks are essential to stay ahead of synthetic IDs, APP scams and first‑party fraud (Banking Scene analysis).

The “so what” is simple: a well‑governed AI stack preserves revenue and reputation - protecting guests from scams while keeping bookings seamless - and that balance should guide every pilot, vendor contract and training plan.

"Fraud prevention isn't just about blocking bad actors - it's also about ensuring that good customers can transact freely." - Miguel Rivera

Belgian hoteliers ready to move from experiment to advantage should take three connected steps: (1) pilot tightly scoped plays that join AI‑driven discovery with secure payments and fraud detection - Adyen's 2025 Hospitality & Travel Report shows 29% of Belgian travellers used AI to book this summer and flags rising fraud, while AI fraud tools can cut false positives by about 86%, keeping genuine guests flowing through the funnel (Adyen 2025 Hospitality & Travel Report (Belgium)); (2) bake compliance and governance into every pilot now - classify systems, run a compliance audit and document AI literacy to meet the EU AI Act first‑rules that took effect 2 Feb 2025 and avoid costly retrofits (EU AI Act first rules (effective 2 Feb 2025)); and (3) upskill fast with practical, role‑based training so front‑desk, revenue and marketing teams use prompts, protect guest data and measure uplift - an accessible option is the AI Essentials for Work bootcamp (15 weeks) to build prompt, tool and governance skills before scaling pilots (AI Essentials for Work bootcamp registration).

Start with small, measurable KPIs (direct bookings, fraud‑adjusted conversion, time saved), iterate with human oversight and multilingual prompts, and you'll turn short experiments into repeatable wins - imagine an AI concierge answering Dutch, French and English queries while a fraud model clears a genuine booking in seconds.

"AI technology has become incredibly important to guests looking for destination inspiration and quick, fun, and personalized itineraries, especially as summer vacations arrive," said Phil Crawford, Global Head of Hospitality at Adyen.