In this episode of the **Everything AI in Travel podcast**, I speak with Faisal Murtaza, founder of Sarucci, about how AI is changing one of the most data-heavy — and commercially important — functions inside a hotel.
Faisal has worked across hotel operations, revenue management and distribution since 2011, managing everything from boutique properties to portfolios of 11 hotels and 3,000 rooms. Now he’s turning that experience into AI-powered revenue intelligence tools.
We dig into:
🏨 What a hotel revenue manager actually does — and why Faisal describes the role as the “air traffic controller” of the commercial operation
📊 Why so many independent hotels are still managing pricing and revenue through spreadsheets, gut feel and disconnected systems
🤖 How AI can identify revenue opportunities and leakage — then recommend the actions a hotel should take
💰 Automated pricing vs keeping a human in the loop
🧠 Why Faisal believes revenue managers should spend less time cleaning and assembling data and more time on strategy
🔗 How AI agents could connect the different parts of a hotel’s commercial operation
⚠️ The risks of simply uploading sensitive hotel and guest data into general-purpose AI tools
🔎 Why hotels need to start thinking about whether their websites and content are actually readable and discoverable by AI agents
🤝 What agent-to-agent commerce could mean for the long-running battle between direct hotel bookings and OTAs
🏨 And why independent hotels may have an interesting opportunity in an agentic world — where they can potentially compete with more than just price.
One particularly interesting idea from Faisal: hotels may be entering a period where **AI discoverability becomes as commercially important as traditional search discoverability**. If an AI agent is choosing where a traveller stays, hotels need to make sure the agent can actually understand, discover and recommend them.
We also discuss Sarucci, Faisal’s revenue intelligence and strategy platform, his AI-readiness auditing tools for hotels, and his upcoming appearance as a finalist at the Future Travel Summit startup competition.
A fascinating conversation about what happens when **AI + hotel data + revenue management + agentic commerce** start converging.
#AI #TravelAI #HotelTech #Hospitality #RevenueManagement #TravelTech #ArtificialIntelligence
