Hotel AI Receptionist for WordPress — Free 6-Step Setup Guide
Add a hotel AI receptionist to your WordPress site — connect Google Gemini or OpenAI free, write your property prompt, and give guests instant 24/7 answers about rooms, availability, check-in, parking, and anything else they ask before booking. No coding. No Pro licence. Just your API key.
⏱️ Setup time: 10–15 minutes
✅ Version: Free — no Pro required
🤖 AI providers: Google Gemini (free tier) or OpenAI
📅 Last updated: July 2026
✅ 100% free — no Pro licence required. Modern Hotel Booking is the first WP hotel booking plugin to include a built-in AI Concierge. The feature is free in both the free and Pro versions. You bring your own API key — Google Gemini API keys are free ↗ from Google AI Studio. The plugin charges nothing per conversation. See how the AI Concierge works on the AI Concierge feature page →
📑 In This Guide
- How the Hotel AI Receptionist Works in WordPress
- Step 1: Get Your Free API Key (Gemini or OpenAI)
- Step 2: Connect Your AI Provider in WordPress
- Step 3: Write Your Property System Prompt
- Step 4: Test the AI Concierge
- Step 5: Add the Hotel AI Receptionist Block to Your Site
- Step 6: Configure WP 7.0 Native Abilities
- What the AI Knows Automatically vs What You Tell It
- Troubleshooting AI Concierge Issues
- Frequently Asked Questions
How the Hotel AI Receptionist Works in WordPress
The problem the AI Concierge solves is a real one. Guests browsing your property at 11pm with a question about parking, check-in time, or whether there’s a cot available — if they can’t get an answer in a few minutes, they book somewhere else. A hotel can’t have someone on call around the clock just to answer the same twelve questions that every guest asks.
I built the AI Concierge into the plugin for exactly this reason. On beachhouse.ro, the same questions come in from guests constantly — what’s the check-in time, where do I park, is there air conditioning, can I bring my dog. The AI handles all of these instantly at any hour, using the property details I gave it, so I don’t have to. Guests get an immediate answer. I get uninterrupted sleep.
Here’s how the connection works: you provide an API key from Google Gemini or OpenAI. When a guest sends a message to the hotel AI receptionist widget, the plugin sends that message plus your property context to the AI provider’s API, receives a response, and displays it to the guest. The entire exchange happens server-to-server. No data passes through the plugin developer’s servers.
Property-aware responses
The AI uses your room data and system prompt to answer questions accurately. It knows your room types, rates, capacity, amenities, check-in time, and house rules. Not generic hotel answers — answers specific to your property.
24/7 — no staff required
Guests get instant responses at any hour. The AI doesn’t take breaks, doesn’t go to sleep, and doesn’t get frustrated answering the same parking question for the fourteenth time. You configure it once and it handles guest communication continuously.
Free to run on Gemini
Google Gemini’s free API tier covers typical small property usage — the AI handling guest questions about check-in, amenities, and booking procedures costs nothing on Gemini’s free tier. You only pay if you exceed the free usage threshold, which most independent properties never do.
Step 1: Get Your API Key — Gemini (Free) or OpenAI
You need an API key from either Google Gemini or OpenAI to power the AI Concierge. The plugin connects to whichever you choose — both work well, and you can switch between them at any point in the settings. For most property owners starting out, Gemini is the practical choice: the free tier is genuinely free and covers moderate usage.
Recommended for most properties
Google Gemini — Free API
- Go to aistudio.google.com ↗
- Sign in with any Google account
- Click Get API Key in the top menu
- Click Create API Key
- Copy the key — it starts with
AIza
The free tier covers millions of tokens per month — more than sufficient for most small hotel or vacation rental properties. No payment method required to start.
Paid API access required
OpenAI — Paid Account
- Go to platform.openai.com ↗
- Create or log into your OpenAI account
- Add a payment method and purchase API credits
- Go to API Keys → Create New Secret Key
- Copy the key — it starts with
sk-
OpenAI no longer offers a free API tier. You purchase credits and pay per token used. For small property usage costs are minimal — a few dollars covers months of typical guest conversations.
⚠️ Keep your API key private. Your API key is a credential that authorises AI requests under your account. Do not paste it anywhere publicly visible — not in posts, not in code comments, not in support forums. The plugin stores it encrypted in your WordPress options table. If a key is compromised, revoke it immediately in Google AI Studio or the OpenAI dashboard and generate a new one.
Step 2: Connect Your AI Provider in WordPress
With your API key copied, the WordPress side is straightforward. This takes about 2 minutes.
Open the AI Concierge settings
In your WP admin go to Hotel Booking → Settings → AI Concierge. This panel contains all the AI connection and configuration options.
Select your AI provider and paste your API key
Choose Google Gemini or OpenAI from the provider selector. Paste your API key into the API Key field. The plugin automatically selects the appropriate AI model for your provider — currently gemini-3.5-flash for Gemini and the standard OpenAI chat model for OpenAI.
Save — don’t write the prompt yet
Save settings to confirm the API key is accepted. Before writing the system prompt, read the next section — the prompt is the most important configuration step and worth doing carefully rather than rushing.
Step 3: Write Your Property System Prompt
This is the most important step and the one most people underinvest in. The system prompt is the instruction set you write that tells the AI who it is, what it knows, and how it should behave. A vague prompt produces vague answers. A specific, detailed prompt produces accurate, genuinely useful responses that sound like they come from someone who actually knows your property.
The AI uses two sources of information to answer guest questions: your system prompt and the room data from your Room Types. Your room type names, rates, capacity, and amenities are automatically available to it. Everything else — check-in time, parking, pet policy, house rules, what’s nearby, what’s included in the rate — needs to be in the prompt.
Prompt template — copy, fill in your details, and paste
You are [Name], the virtual receptionist for [Property Name], a [property type — hotel/guesthouse/vacation rental] located in [City, Country].
Check-in: [time] | Check-out: [time]
Address: [full address]
Parking: [parking details — free/paid/none, location]
WiFi: [network name and password, or “provided at check-in”]
Breakfast: [included/not included/available to purchase]
Pets: [accepted/not accepted/accepted with conditions]
Pool/Beach access: [details]
House rules: [no smoking, quiet hours, max guests, etc.]
Key collection: [how and where guests collect keys]
Answer guest questions about the property using this information. Be friendly, helpful, and specific. If you don’t know the answer to a question, say you’ll pass the question to the property owner and ask the guest for their email address. Never invent information that isn’t in this prompt or in the room data.
💡 One rule that dramatically improves quality: Add “Never invent information that isn’t in this prompt or in the room data” to your prompt. Without it, AI models sometimes fill gaps in their knowledge with plausible-sounding but wrong answers — telling a guest the pool is open until 10pm when you haven’t mentioned a pool at all. This instruction tells the AI to stay within what it knows.
Step 4: Test the AI Concierge Before Going Live
Don’t put the AI Concierge in front of guests until you’ve tested it yourself. The AI Concierge settings panel includes a built-in simulator — use it before publishing the widget on any page.
Ask it the questions your guests actually ask. Not test questions — real questions you receive regularly:
- “What time can we check in?”
- “Is there parking at the property?”
- “Can we bring our dog?”
- “Is breakfast included?”
- “What’s the WiFi password?”
- “Are the rooms air conditioned?”
- “What’s nearby for restaurants?”
- “How do we collect the keys?”
If the AI answers accurately — go to the next step. If it gives a wrong or vague answer, return to the system prompt and add the missing information. The quality of the AI’s responses is directly proportional to the quality of the prompt. Test, refine, test again.
⚠️ Also test with an unusual question: Ask something the AI shouldn’t know — like a question about a competitor hotel, or something completely unrelated to your property. Confirm it deflects gracefully rather than inventing an answer. If it hallucinates, add “If asked about anything outside your knowledge of this property, politely say you don’t have that information and offer to pass the question to the property owner” to your system prompt.
Step 5: Add the Hotel AI Receptionist Block to Your WordPress Site
Once you’re satisfied with the hotel AI receptionist’s responses in the simulator, add the chat widget to your WordPress site using the native Gutenberg block. Open any page in the block editor, click the + inserter, search for Hotel AI Concierge, and add it. The widget renders on the frontend exactly where you place the block.
Where to place the AI Concierge block
| Page | Why it works well here | Recommended? |
|---|---|---|
| Booking page | Guests with last-minute questions before committing to a booking can get an instant answer rather than abandoning | ✅ Best |
| Room listing page | Guests browsing rooms who have amenity or rate questions get answers without leaving the page | ✅ Recommended |
| Homepage | First point of contact for arriving visitors — catches questions early in the research phase | ✅ Recommended |
| Contact page | Guests looking for contact information may prefer instant AI answers to waiting for an email response | ⚠️ Optional |
💡 AI Concierge alongside WhatsApp: The AI Concierge and the WhatsApp chat button are complementary, not competing. The AI handles the standard questions instantly at any hour. The WhatsApp button gives guests access to you directly for complex or sensitive questions you prefer to handle personally. Both can be active on the same page simultaneously. See the WhatsApp setup guide →
Step 6: Configure WP 7.0 Native Abilities
This is an optional but powerful step. The plugin registers 13 conversational AI capabilities as native WordPress 7.0 Abilities — specific things the AI concierge is permitted to do or discuss during a guest conversation. Each Ability can be toggled independently.
To configure them: go to Hotel Booking → Settings → AI Concierge → Abilities. You’ll see the full list of registered Abilities with toggles. The default state is all Abilities enabled — the AI can handle the full range of guest conversations out of the box. Disable specific Abilities if there are topics you prefer to handle manually or want guests to contact you about directly.
What WP 7.0 native Abilities registration means in practice
WordPress 7.0 introduced a native Abilities API that allows plugins to register specific AI capabilities with REST API exposure. Modern Hotel Booking uses this to give you granular control over the AI’s conversational scope rather than a single on/off switch for the whole concierge.
Example: if you want the AI to answer questions about room features and availability but prefer all pricing discussions to come directly from you, you can disable the pricing-related Abilities while keeping all others active. The AI will answer everything except rate questions, routing those to you instead.
💡 Start with all Abilities enabled. The default configuration — all 13 Abilities active — is appropriate for most properties. Only disable individual Abilities if you have a specific reason to restrict what the AI handles. You can adjust this at any point without affecting your API connection or system prompt.
What the AI Knows Automatically vs What You Tell It
Understanding this split saves you time writing the system prompt and prevents you from duplicating information the AI already has access to.
From your Room Types & Settings automatically
No need to add to the prompt
- Room type names and descriptions
- Nightly base rates
- Room capacity (adults and children)
- Amenities ticked on each room type
- Current availability (live from the calendar)
Add this to your system prompt
The AI only knows this if you tell it
- Check-in and check-out times
- Property address and directions
- Parking instructions
- WiFi network and password
- Pet policy
- Breakfast / meals included or not
- House rules and quiet hours
- Key collection process
- Local recommendations and what’s nearby
- Any seasonal or special policies
Troubleshooting AI Concierge Issues
The AI Concierge settings panel is not visible in Hotel Booking → Settings
The AI Concierge is a free feature but requires the plugin to be fully updated. Go to WP Admin → Plugins and confirm Modern Hotel Booking shows as the latest version. If an update is available, install it. Then check Hotel Booking → Settings again — the AI Concierge tab should appear.
“Invalid API key” or authentication error when saving settings
Check: (1) you selected the correct provider — Gemini keys start with AIza, OpenAI keys start with sk-. If the prefix doesn’t match, you’ve pasted the wrong key. (2) The key was copied in full — API keys are long and it’s easy to miss the last few characters. Go back to Google AI Studio or OpenAI, copy the key again freshly, and paste directly.
The AI gives wrong or vague answers about the property
The system prompt needs more detail. Return to Hotel Booking → Settings → AI Concierge and expand the prompt with the specific information the AI got wrong. If it said the pool closes at 10pm when you have no pool, add “There is no pool at this property” explicitly. If check-in time was wrong, add it to the prompt. The AI can only use what you give it.
The chat widget block doesn’t appear in the block inserter
Confirm Modern Hotel Booking is active under WP Admin → Plugins. If it’s active and the block doesn’t appear, deactivate and reactivate the plugin to re-register the blocks, then reload the block editor. Also try searching for just “Hotel” rather than the full block name — the search is prefix-sensitive.
Still having issues?
Post on the WordPress.org support forum ↗ or email [email protected]. Include which AI provider you’re using, the error message or behaviour you’re seeing, and the first few characters of your API key prefix (AIza or sk-) so we can confirm the provider match.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the AI Concierge free or does it require Pro?
The AI Concierge is completely free — it’s part of the core plugin with no Pro licence required. You bring your own API key from Google Gemini (free tier available at Google AI Studio) or OpenAI. The plugin charges nothing per conversation.
Which AI provider should I choose — Google Gemini or OpenAI?
For most small hotel and vacation rental properties, Google Gemini is the practical starting point — the free API tier from Google AI Studio covers moderate usage at no cost. OpenAI requires a paid account for API access. Both work equally well with the plugin. You can switch between them at any time in the settings.
How does the hotel AI receptionist in WordPress know about my property?
Two ways. The AI automatically reads the data from your Room Types — names, rates, capacity, amenities. Everything else — check-in time, parking, WiFi, house rules, pet policy — comes from the system prompt you write in the AI Concierge settings. The more detailed your prompt, the more accurate the responses.
What should I include in the system prompt?
The AI’s identity and property name, check-in and check-out times, address and parking, WiFi details, pet policy, breakfast or meal options, house rules, key collection process, and answers to your most frequently asked guest questions. The more specific the better — generic prompts produce generic answers.
What are the WP 7.0 native Abilities in the AI Concierge?
The plugin registers 13 conversational AI capabilities as native WordPress 7.0 Abilities — specific things the AI concierge is permitted to handle, such as availability questions, pricing information, booking guidance, and property information. Each can be toggled individually in the Abilities settings panel, giving you granular control over what the AI handles versus what you prefer to manage directly.
Is guest conversation data stored or sent to the plugin developer?
No. Guest chat messages go from your server directly to your chosen AI provider — Google Gemini or OpenAI — to generate a response. Nothing passes through the plugin developer’s servers. Conversation history is cached locally as WordPress Transients for a maximum of 2 hours then automatically deleted. No guest personal information is permanently stored by the AI Concierge.
Can I use the WP hotel booking AI assistant without an API key?
No. The AI Concierge requires an active API key from either Google Gemini or OpenAI to function. The plugin does not include its own AI model — it connects to these services to generate responses. A Google Gemini key is free and takes about 2 minutes to create at aistudio.google.com.
Want card payments & iCal sync too?
The AI Concierge is free. Upgrade to Pro to add Stripe and PayPal card payments, automatic two-way iCal sync with Airbnb and Booking.com, GDPR tools, and children pricing.