Insights & Stories

A New Chapter for LOULOU AI: Building Tech That Elevates Human Connection

LOULOU AI is proud to announce its first institutional funding, a startup grant from the South Carolina Research Authority. This milestone accelerates our mission to build technology that supports hospitality teams, elevates the guest experience, and captures opportunities without compromising human connection. In this article, we'll explore the significance of this funding and how it reflects our commitment to innovation in hospitality technology.

April 14, 2026 · 3 min read

Hospitality AI

LOULOU Named Best New Product at ISPA 2026, What It Means for Hospitality AI

We went into ISPA with no expectations. We left with the Best New Product/Service award, and with something more important: confirmation that the problem we built for is exactly the problem operators are living every day.

April 13, 2026 · 6 min read

The Math of Hospitality: Why Working Smarter Matters

The hospitality industry faces immense pressure due to labor shortages and rising costs. To stay afloat, it's crucial to work smarter and protect both guest experience and revenue. Learn how to overcome these challenges with the right strategies and technologies.

April 11, 2026 · 3 min read

Hospitality AI

What Your Phone Logs Are Telling You (and How to Listen)

There is a hospitality dashboard you probably do not have, and it is the most important one in your building. Your phone logs already contain it, you just have to know how to read them.

November 24, 2025 · 7 min read

Restaurants

The Restaurant Reservation Funnel: Where Guests Drop Off and How to Catch Them

We mapped the full restaurant reservation funnel from inbound intent to seated guest. The drop-off pattern is consistent across markets, and the fixes are not where most operators look.

November 19, 2025 · 8 min read

Hospitality AI

How to Train an AI to Sound Like Your Brand (Without Losing the Soul of Your Service)

The phrase "AI brand voice" makes most hospitality operators wince. We are sympathetic. Here is how the actual work happens, and how to keep the soul of your service intact.

November 14, 2025 · 7 min read

Hospitality AI

AI vs. Traditional Answering Services: A Hospitality Operator's Honest Comparison

Most operators have either tried a traditional answering service and found it disappointing, or are considering AI voice for the first time. Here is the honest comparison from someone who has lived inside both.

November 7, 2025 · 9 min read

Hotels & Resorts

Multilingual Hotel Front Desk: Serving International Guests Without Hiring International Staff

International leisure travel is back at near-record levels, and most US hospitality phone lines are still optimized for 2013. The English-only IVR is quietly bleeding the most valuable calls in your inbox, and most operators have no idea it is happening.

October 31, 2025 · 8 min read

Hospitality AI

The True Cost of a Missed Spa Call (Spoiler: It's More Than One Massage)

Operators tend to think of a missed spa call as a missed massage. The full economic tail is much longer, once you account for retail, gift cards, return visits, and the lifetime value of a guest who finally found her therapist.

October 21, 2025 · 7 min read

Hotels & Resorts

After-Hours Reservations: The $180K Booking Window Hotels Are Sleeping Through

We pulled call data across our resort, restaurant, and spa partners. Forty-two percent of bookable inbound call intent was happening between 7 p.m. and 9 a.m., exactly when most reservation desks were dark. The demand was there the whole time. It was just hitting voicemail.

October 13, 2025 · 7 min read

Hotels & Resorts

What Forbes-Level Service Actually Means on the Phone, and How AI Delivers It Consistently

Forbes 5-Star phone standards are precise enough to feel almost ritualistic. My co-founder Dawn has lived inside those standards for two decades. Here is what they actually measure, and why consistency, not talent, is the real gap most luxury properties face.

October 3, 2025 · 8 min read

Hotels & Resorts

Voice vs. Online Bookings: Why Phone Reservations Generate 60% More Revenue in Luxury Hotels

For everything the digital booking world has done well, it has missed something essential at the luxury end of the market: when a guest is about to spend $4,000 on a long weekend, she still wants to talk to someone first. The voice booking conversion gap is real, it is structural, and most operators are quietly losing it.

September 21, 2025 · 8 min read

Hotels & Resorts

The 85% Problem: Why Unanswered Resort Calls Are Your Biggest Hidden Revenue Leak

Eighty-five percent of callers whose calls go unanswered will not call back. For a 200-room resort, that single stat translates to well over a million dollars of vanished revenue annually, and most operators have no idea it is happening because the lost bookings never created a transaction.

September 11, 2025 · 9 min read