Tim Hentschel’s career path is nothing short of transformative. From humble beginnings in the hotel and restaurant industry to becoming the co-founder and CEO of HotelPlanner, Hentschel has always had his eyes on innovation. Reflecting on his early career, he recalls working for major players like Best Western and Hilton as a student before moving into the tech side of hospitality. “I worked a number of jobs in the hotel and restaurant industry,” Hentschel recalls. “And then after I graduated from Cornell… I did a short stint in New York City for a private equity bank before founding HotelPlanner.”
The idea for HotelPlanner came to Hentschel in 2003, at a time when the internet was still in its infancy. “Nobody was doing group hotel bookings online,” he explains. The lack of any technology offering for groups inspired him to act. Hentschel wrote a patent and partnered with John Prince, a top software engineer from IBM, to launch the company. It wasn’t an easy start. “The biggest challenges were… trying to make money.” Like many tech startups, HotelPlanner had to prove its business model in a space that had not yet been explored. “It was really hard in the beginning because it was new technology… It was never done before. We had to prove the model.”
One of the major hurdles was convincing potential customers to embrace new technology when the traditional method of group bookings was still predominantly conducted over the phone. “As long as we could save people time and money, we knew that people would gravitate toward our product,” Hentschel says. It didn’t take long for HotelPlanner to find its footing. By the second year of operations, the company was profitable. “We knew the minute that we managed that, that we had something,” he recalls.
HotelPlanner began by revolutionising the group hotel booking process using a reverse auction system. “It’s hotels bidding on your business,” Hentschel explains. For example, a wedding group could request rooms and amenities, and then hotels would compete to offer the best package. This process was supported by automation, making it faster and more efficient over time. As Hentschel notes, “a lot of the bidding in the reverse auction is now machine-generated.”
Automation became a driving force in HotelPlanner’s growth, but it didn’t stop there. Hentschel and his team started looking for other aspects of the hospitality industry where they could apply similar technologies. “Once we dominated the group hotel booking space, we started to look at other niches in the hotel hospitality technology space that were high touch but low automation,” Hentschel says. The goal was to bring both high touch and high automation together, and that’s where the company’s work in artificial intelligence (AI) really began to take off.
AI has become a central component of HotelPlanner’s offerings in recent years. “AI was making a very big impact on how we presented a product to our customers,” Hentschel explains. By integrating machine learning algorithms, HotelPlanner was able to tailor its offerings to what customers responded to and booked most frequently. But perhaps the most significant leap in AI came when the company launched its gig-powered call center five years ago. “A traditional call centre would be a big cubicle in the Philippines, Mexico, or India,” Hentschel explains. But HotelPlanner’s model allowed anyone, anywhere, to help customers from their own living rooms, provided they completed training. This innovation expanded HotelPlanner’s workforce to more than 7,000 agents worldwide.
Yet Hentschel wasn’t content to stop there. The next step was exploring whether AI could fully replace human agents for certain types of calls. “We started doing that last year with customer service calls and even with group request calls,” Hentschel says, noting that the results were remarkable. “We found that AI is about equal in conversion to humans,” which is no small feat considering HotelPlanner’s gig-powered call centre already converts 30% higher than traditional call centres.
Hentschel believes that the true promise of AI lies in making both employees and businesses more productive. “AI is going to lead to a world of unbelievable prosperity,” he predicts. For those who worry about the potential for job losses due to automation, Hentschel offers a more optimistic view: “They said that about the internet too… The best thing it did was just get rid of fax machines, Post-it notes, carbon copies, and rolodexes.” In his view, AI will similarly eliminate the more mundane aspects of work, allowing humans to focus on creative, high-value tasks. “AI will make people more prosperous,” Hentschel declares, adding that it could even double or triple the earnings of HotelPlanner’s gig agents.
As Hentschel points out, AI is not just about cutting costs, although those savings will come in time. Right now, the development of AI is expensive. “It’s an investment for the long term,” Hentschel notes, stressing that his interest in AI is driven by the desire to remain on the cutting edge of technology. “We’re an engineering-led company,” he says. “We’re always looking at how we can innovate space, take something that’s high touch and low automation, and turn it into high automation.”
Hentschel is quick to acknowledge that technology isn’t always the perfect solution, particularly in hospitality where personal touch remains crucial. “Some of the technology I can’t stand,” he admits, referencing QR code menus in restaurants. “Please don’t make me use my phone. I’m already on my phone all the time.” For Hentschel, technology should enhance the customer experience, not detract from it. However, he also acknowledges that preferences vary, and technology like AI will allow businesses to cater to individual needs. For instance, AI can determine whether a customer prefers using a map or a list when searching for hotels, and adjust the interface accordingly. “It’s all about figuring out what their preference is,” he explains.
Despite his enthusiasm for AI, Hentschel stresses that HotelPlanner remains focused on optimising every part of the customer journey. “We’re still always looking to optimise every single piece of the customer journey,” he says, adding that A/B testing remains a critical part of this process. AI enhances this by removing the need to choose one option over another—allowing the system to customise the experience based on each individual’s behaviour.
When asked about the future, Hentschel is optimistic. “We’re just going to continue to execute, continue to be good citizens of the world,” he says. For HotelPlanner, the focus remains on making customers and employees happy through real tech and real automation. With the upcoming launch of a fully automated AI call centre, Hentschel is excited about the possibilities for growth, especially internationally. “We can have calls answered in any language, in any time zone, with perfect responses,” he says, emphasising how this technology will drive HotelPlanner’s global expansion.
Looking even further ahead, Hentschel is already contemplating what might come next. “We’ve had this good 20-year history of real cutting-edge innovation,” he says. “Now we have this AI-powered call centre which is our iPhone. Now I have to think about what’s going to be the next iPhone.” While Hentschel doesn’t have all the answers yet, his track record suggests that HotelPlanner will continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in hospitality technology.
Ultimately, Hentschel remains a firm believer in the power of technology to drive prosperity and improve both business and society. As AI continues to reshape industries, HotelPlanner stands at the forefront of this transformation, proving that innovation and human-centred service can go hand in hand.
