Top 5 Jobs in Hospitality That Are Most at Risk from AI in Belgium - And How to Adapt

Belgian hospitality stands at a clear inflection point: Adyen's 2025 report finds 29% of Belgian travellers used AI to book summer trips (a 74% jump), and one in three local hospitality businesses say AI search tools will reshape the sector in 2025 - proof that guest expectations are shifting faster than many operations can adapt.

Events like the Belgium Hospitality Club's “AI meets Hospitality” evening have turned abstract promise into practical examples, from personalised guest journeys to automated revenue tools, making the risk more immediate for front‑line roles and booking teams.

With Deloitte and industry research showing both rapid GenAI uptake and persistent trust and skills gaps, Belgian hotels and B&Bs need concrete, job‑focused training to pair human warmth with smart automation - for example, Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp syllabus offers practical workplace AI skills - while vendors and managers must move from pilots to reliable guest‑facing systems to avoid being left behind.

"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.

The top‑five roles were selected by triangulating Belgium‑specific signals from EY's workforce surveys with sector analysis and real use‑cases: first, the EY European AI Barometer figures for Belgium (high AI usage at 70.9% and striking concerns such as 74% fearing job losses, plus a 60% reported positive financial effect) flagged where automation pressure and opportunity collide; second, EY's hospitality briefing on how AI reshapes guest services, revenue management and back‑office workflows highlighted likely hotspots (front desk, reservations, concierge, back‑office admin and basic F&B order‑taking); and third, practical Belgian use cases - like contactless check‑in, predictive HVAC maintenance and inventory forecasting - were used to test which tasks are most automatable versus which still demand human judgment.

Priority for the final list came from three criteria applied to each role: frequency of routine tasks, visibility to guests (impact on experience), and the current Belgian training gap (over 80% of employees say their employers don't provide enough AI help).

This mixed‑method approach - survey signals + hospitality domain mapping + local use‑case validation - ensures the list points to where Belgian employers should focus upskilling and governance first.

“This year has been an inflection point in the development and deployment of AI across all industries. While financial services firms have employed and managed AI for years, generative AI and Large Language Models have changed the landscape,” said Jessica Renier, Managing Director of Digital Finance at IIF.

Front‑desk receptionists in Belgian hotels, B&Bs and hostels are on the frontline of an automation wave: mobile check‑in, kiosks and AI messaging can halve traditional front‑desk workload, freeing guests to arrive and open their rooms with a phone instead of queueing at a desk - a concrete risk to routine reception tasks highlighted by automated check‑in vendors like Canary Technologies automated hotel check-in solution.

Systems that verify ID, take payment, assign rooms and push upsells already integrate with PMS platforms, so the jobs that are most repetitive and form‑driven are most exposed; at the same time, hybrid “assisted digital check‑in” setups let properties redeploy receptionists into higher‑value roles (guest relations, conflict resolution, local recommendations) rather than fully replacing them, a practical path recommended by front‑desk automation providers such as Hotelinking assisted digital check-in solution.

Belgian properties should prioritise hands‑on training in PMS integrations, guest messaging and upsell scripting, run small hybrid pilots to protect service quality, and adopt local contactless and IoT playbooks - see how contactless check‑in is being explored for Belgian hotels in this Nucamp guide to contactless check-in in Belgium - so the memorable outcome is clear: instead of lost jobs, a smarter front desk becomes the warm, expert anchor guests still remember.

“Our reception team now works more efficiently thanks to Hotelinking's assisted digital check‑in, which automates the entire process and eliminates manual data entry.”

Reservations and sales agents in Belgian hotels face clear pressure as AI-powered booking engines, chatbots and revenue-management systems take over repetitive tasks - from instant rate adjustments to automated rebooking after cancellations - so routine availability checks and simple rate negotiations are the first to vanish; dynamic pricing engines can update rates multiple times a day, so a weekend room might change price three times before breakfast, making manual rate-chasing futile.

The upside is practical: AI improves RevPAR and conversion by analysing market trends, competitor rates and booking patterns, but it also brings consumer backlash and regulatory scrutiny if surge‑like pricing looks unfair, so Belgian teams should pivot from manual entry work to higher‑value roles - overseeing RMS rules, approving price overrides, handling complex or sensitive bookings, and converting AI suggestions into personalised upsells.

Concrete steps include hands‑on training with AI pricing tools, learning demand forecasting and channel parity management, and running phased pilots that keep humans in the loop for reputation‑sensitive decisions; for implementation help see guidance on the regulatory and reputational risks of dynamic pricing and tools for automated rate optimisation such as TCRMservices automated revenue management tools, PriceLabs dynamic pricing software and SiteMinder channel manager.

“If I had to describe SiteMinder in one word it would be reliability. The team loves SiteMinder because it is a tool that we can always count on as it never fails, it is very easy to use and it is a key part of our revenue management strategy.”

Concierges in Belgian hotels face a double-edged opportunity: AI-powered virtual concierges and multilingual chatbots can answer routine requests 24/7, manage upsells and even orchestrate smart-room settings so a guest's room is “lit just how you like it” on arrival, but that same efficiency risks hollowing out the personal service that defines hospitality; the smart path for Belgium is a hybrid model where AI handles repeatable tasks and data‑driven recommendations while human concierges focus on complex, culturally sensitive or high‑touch moments, oversight and turning AI suggestions into memorable local experiences.

Practical steps include piloting virtual concierge tools (start with low‑risk FAQs and upsell flows), training teams to use AI outputs as decision support, and embedding governance and EU‑focused privacy checks before full rollout - see EY/EHL's guidance on using AI to elevate guest experience and operational efficiency and Bird & Bird's checklist for mitigating GDPR and AI Act risks.

Treat AI as a co‑pilot, not a replacement: with proper training, monitoring and phased implementation Belgian properties can cut response times, lift ancillary revenue and keep the human warmth that guests still value.

“The traditional service industry uses concierges for high-end clients, meaning that only a few people have access to them,” Liu said.

Back‑office teams - accounts, payroll and procurement - are quietly sitting on the data that makes AI most powerful and, sadly, most disruptive: payroll files, supplier contracts and transaction records are prime targets for automated classification, anomaly detection and multi‑step agent workflows, so routine reconciliation, vendor onboarding and contract review are the first processes to be reshaped.

Automated data‑governance tools can continuously scan and classify PII and financial fields, enforce rules and even surface “intelligent recommendations” to fix quality issues, turning spreadsheet‑driven audits into auditable, machine‑checked trails (see Workday's take on Workday data governance automation benefits and use cases).

Contract lifecycle management and contract intelligence can extract renewal, liability and payment terms in hours instead of days, cutting legal friction and exposing hidden cost savings - proven gains from Workday AI-native contract lifecycle management (CLM).

For procurement, pairing that with predictive inventory and maintenance signals keeps purchasing lean and prevents emergency spend; practical Belgian pilots could start by linking CLM to inventory forecasting and supplier scoring (see Nucamp's Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus).

Adaptation means shifting staff toward exception handling, governance stewardship and vendor relationship management, keeping humans in the loop for edge cases while machines run the routine - a balance that preserves jobs and makes back‑office work far less grunt and far more strategic.

“Workday has leapfrogged the contract lifecycle management space with next-generation contract AI, powered by Evisort. It's the fastest to deploy, most field-tested, most secure solution in the market.” - Managing Partner

Food order‑taking and basic F&B service in Belgian hotels and B&Bs sit squarely in the “highly automatable” slice: AI agents and simple automation can handle menu lookups, repeat orders and payment reconciliation, turning routine exchange into a behind‑the‑scenes orchestration - which means the familiar image of a waiter with a paper pad is being reshaped.

That risk is matched by opportunity: PwC's 2025 AI Jobs Barometer shows even highly automatable roles can grow in value if workers gain AI skills (a 56% wage premium for AI‑skilled workers and 66% faster change in demanded skills), so Belgian operators should shift staff from rote order entry to oversight, allergy and quality stewardship, personalised upselling and guest relations that machines can't replicate.

Practical first steps include piloting agent‑enabled order flows while linking menus to inventory forecasting and predictive maintenance to cut waste and avoid outages (see how predictive maintenance and inventory forecasting help Belgian hotels), and running short, skills‑first training to turn servers into supervisors of AI rather than victims of it.

The point is simple: automating the grunt work can free teams to create the small, human touches that guests remember - if managers invest in the right tools and training now (and measure results as PwC recommends).

“In contrast to worries that AI could cause sharp reductions in the number of jobs available – this year's findings show jobs are growing in virtually every type of AI‑exposed occupation, including highly automatable ones. AI is amplifying and democratizing expertise…” - Joe Atkinson, Global Chief AI Officer, PwC

Belgian hospitality managers and workers should treat AI not as a distant threat but as a practical skills gap to close now: start with mandated AI literacy under the EU AI Act (see the curated EU AI literacy programs), run low‑risk pilots that pair virtual assistants with human oversight, and sign staff up for short, practical courses listed on the VAIA Flanders AI Academy (their calendar links dozens of summer schools and masterclasses across Leuven, Ghent and Antwerp at VAIA Flanders AI Academy training calendar).

For role‑specific reskilling, consider cohort programs that teach workplace prompting, tool governance and hands‑on use cases - Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work is a 15‑week bootcamp that focuses on real‑world AI skills for non‑technical staff and includes prompt writing and job‑based practical AI training (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus).

A quick, memorable payoff: predictive HVAC pilots that analyse 90 days of sensor logs can flag faults before a guest ever notices a cold shower, proving training + targeted tech can protect jobs and the guest experience.