From 12 to 14 October 2026 Sofia once again hosted the HTIF Hotel Forum, the eleventh edition of the biggest event for the hotel industry in Bulgaria. Over 1,000 hotel owners and managers, investors, restaurateurs, tour operators and suppliers came together in Hall 3 of NDK for the two-day conference.
For the HotPilot team this was our first participation, and as a sponsor of the forum. Two days full of positive emotions, a lot of coffee and pleasant conversations. Here is what we learned.
What we showed you
Our participation at HTIF had one main goal: for hoteliers to see first-hand how AI does real work in a hotel. No slides and no promises, just the system in action.
At our stand we showed how a guest asks a question in the chat on the hotel's website and gets a specific answer, about availability, rates and conditions. Guests also saw how the booking happens during that same conversation, without the process being interrupted. We showed the other side too: how the hotel team hands tasks to the assistant in simple sentences, changing prices for a given period, creating a booking, sending an email, comparing revenue with last season.
The most common question was short, precise and clear: "And this works on my website?" Our answer was just as clear: "Yes, with your real data, in the guest's language, 24 hours a day."
The Marketing Suite drew strong interest as well, a functionality the other solutions on the market simply don't have. The hotel sends relevant offers to its guests on its own, before arrival, during the stay and after it, by email or Viber, based on their previous visits and preferences. For many of the hoteliers at the stand it was the first time they saw marketing that works without a whole marketing department.
What you told us
The most valuable part of HTIF, though, wasn't what we showed but what we heard. Hoteliers didn't ask us what technology we use. They told us how their day goes. A few sentences stood out in almost every conversation we had:
- "Who answers the guests after 10 pm?"
- "I'm losing 20% on Booking.com."
- "I change the prices myself, when I remember to."
- "I don't have a database of my guests."
- "ESTI eats an hour of my day."
Five sentences illustrating five areas of a hotel's work: bookings, guest communication, pricing, marketing and administration. These are exactly the tasks we built HotPilot for. For our team it was valuable to hear them, especially from the people who do them every day.
One sentence, however, stood out from the rest: "We didn't know something like this existed."
We admit it surprised us. A large share of the hoteliers we spoke to simply had no idea that AI could answer their guests, finish abandoned bookings or move their prices for them.
The numbers behind the words
Our conversations at the stand match what industry research shows. According to a survey by BAHE and HTIF among owners of more than 23,000 rooms, 97% of hotels have a staffing problem, and 70% believe that automating bookings and room management would ease the staff shortage.
The trend on the guest side is the same: 80% of travellers now expect AI capability in the booking process, and the share of search engines as the starting point for choosing a hotel has dropped from 36% to 21% in a single year (SiteMinder, 2026). In other words, the guest already asks instead of searching. The question is whether the hotel is ready to answer.
The evening after the forum
For us the forum didn't end with the events in Hall 3 of NDK. On 13 October the HotPilot team continued the conversations in a more informal setting with our first event, called HotTalks, held at Aura by Bamboo. Prof. Rumen Draganov, Teodor Minev and Petar Lozanov took the stage for a conversation in which they shared their views, experience and impressions. You can read more about the event and what exactly we talked about in our separate HotTalks article.
Thank you, and see you at HTIF 2027
Thank you to the HTIF team for the organisation and the warm welcome for our debut participation. Thank you to everyone who stopped by the stand, asked a question, shared a problem, experience and observations, or simply wished us luck. And of course, our sincere thanks to the colleagues from the industry, some of whom we met again and others for the first time.
And if you were at HTIF but didn't make it to stand E3, it's not too late. Write to us at [email protected] or book a demo and we'll show you what AI looks like on your own hotel's website.
