Access Hospitality launches AI-powered interactive booking engine

Travel tool ‘understands guest intent, adapts in real time’

Access Hospitality, the parent company of SHR, Guestline, and STAAH, has developed the first booking engine to combine a fully embedded user experience with autonomous, agent-based AI.

Delivered through SHR’s Embedded Booking Engine, the system sits natively within a hotel’s website, eliminating redirects and reloads, while also integrating deeply with the hotel’s CRS and CRM systems. 

The new Interactive AI Booking Engine replaces traditional booking flows with a system that listens, reasons, and responds – guiding guests through a fluid, two-way conversation instead of a static flow. 

It intuitively guides guests through every step of their journey, delivering the right information at the right time to support confident decision-making. 

Bookings are completed seamlessly — without forms, friction, or interruptions – helping drive conversion with every interaction.

At the core of the system is a new generation of agentic AI technology developed by SHR: a coordinated set of specialised agents that work together to optimise and personalise the booking journey in real time. 

Each agent is designed to handle a specific function within the guest experience, retrieving relevant information based on user profile and context, analysing behaviour, tailoring responses and generating dynamic recommendations. 

The result is an intelligent, adaptive engine that transforms complexity into clarity, continuously aligning the experience to each guest’s needs and confidently guiding them toward the right choice – all aligned with the hotel’s commercial priorities.

The engine’s capabilities extend far beyond those of a simple chatbot. While chatbots are built to respond to questions, AI Agent systems are built to achieve outcomes. They don’t just wait for input or follow predefined scripts — they interpret intent, reason through complexity, and take meaningful action.

And unlike chatbots, which treat interactions as isolated exchanges, AI Agent systems engage with continuity and purpose — delivering guidance, not just answers, and ensuring that every step leads naturally to the next.

The result is a more human, more helpful, and more effective experience. Guests enjoy a fast, modern, and fully branded journey from start to finish. 

The interface supports multi-property search, voice and natural language input, voucher use, and upsell offers – while keeping the guest immersed in the hotel’s own site from start to finish.

What makes this possible is SHR’s deep native integration across the CRS and CRM. The AI engine has full access to real-time availability, pricing logic, loyalty entitlements, guest history, and behavioural signals.

Andrew McGregor, VP Accommodation at Access Hospitality, said: “This launch marks the end of booking as a static transaction. For years, the booking experience has been optimised around the interface: better buttons, fewer clicks, cleaner layouts. But that only goes so far. 

“With the Interactive AI Booking Engine, we’re stepping into a new era where the system doesn’t wait for perfect input – it listens, interprets, and acts. It’s a fully integrated intelligence layer that understands guest context, applies dynamic logic, and completes bookings in real time. We’ve given hotels a way to move beyond static funnels and into dynamic, conversation-driven engagement that adapts to the guest with every step.”