AI hyper-personalization to catapult hospitality industry to new heights: FHS  

Enquire AI CEO Cenk Sidar. Screenshot.
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Updated 26 September 2023
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AI hyper-personalization to catapult hospitality industry to new heights: FHS  

RIYADH: Artificial intelligence will soon recommend personalized services to hotel guests based on their previous stays and preferences thanks to its emerging hyper-personalization features, revealed the CEO of a US-based AI insights company. 

Speaking at the Future Hospitality Summit in Abu Dhabi on Monday, Enquire AI CEO Cenk Sidar told Arab News that technological developments will allow market players to provide customized solutions. 

“Hyper-personalization is an important subject for travel and would require millions of dollars of investment now that there are hundreds of large language models like ChatGPT,” said Sidar. 

According to Amsterdam-based hospitality technology company User Guest, personalization drives performance and better customer outcomes.  

Companies that grow faster drive 40 percent more revenue from personalization than their slower counterparts.  

User Guest’s tool utilizes advanced data analysis to identify guest preferences and behavior patterns, allowing hotels to offer highly personalized experiences tailored to each guest’s needs.  

For instance, if a guest is searching for a last-minute booking, the hotel can offer a special rate for those dates while optimizing its occupancy needs. 

“Any solution that would provide simplicity and convenience to the end user will have a competitive edge,” added Sidar. 

He revealed that the more data is collected, the better the understanding and analysis will be, consequently contributing to devising the appropriate solution. 

Sidar envisaged this kind of technology becoming commonplace in the coming years. 

Branded residences 

Speaking at another panel on branded residences, Turab Saleem, head of hospitality, tourism and leisure advisory services at Knight Frank in the Middle East and North Africa, shed light on the power of the brand.  

“You easily get an average of 18 to 25 percent increase in value by switching from non-branded to branded,” Saleem highlighted. 

He spoke about how even with two developments right next to each other, the branded one fetches 50 percent better pricing. 

Centered around the theme “Focus on Investment,” the summit serves as a catalyst for change, facilitating interactions among over 1,000 hospitality leaders through debates, dialogues, initiatives and announcements.  

Hosted at the Hilton Abu Dhabi Yas Island, the agenda for the three-day event includes contributions from more than 150 speakers in panel discussions, one-on-one interviews, roundtables, innovation pitches and student-led sessions. 


Saudi Arabia set to attract $500bn in private investment, Al-Falih tells conference

Updated 09 December 2025
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Saudi Arabia set to attract $500bn in private investment, Al-Falih tells conference

RIYADH: Sustainability, technology, and financial models were among the core topics discussed by financial leaders during the first day of the Momentum 2025 Development Finance Conference in Riyadh.

The three-day event features more than 100 speakers and over 20 exhibitors, with the central theme revolving around how development financial institutions can propel economic growth.

Speaking during a panel titled “The Sustainable Investment Opportunity,” Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih elaborated on the significant investment progress made in the Kingdom.

“We estimate in the midterm of 2030 or maybe a couple of years more or so, about $1 trillion of infrastructure investment,” he said, adding: “We estimate, as a minimum, 40 percent of this infrastructure is going to be financed by the private sector, so we’re talking in the next few years $400 (billion) to $500 billion.”

The minister drew a correlation between the scale of investment needs and rising global energy demand, especially as artificial intelligence continues to evolve within data processing and digital infrastructure in global spheres.

“The world demand of energy is continuing to grow and is going to grow faster with the advent of the AI processing requirements (…) so our target of the electricity sector is 50 percent from renewables, and 50 percent from gas,” he added.

Al-Falih underscored the importance of AI as a key sector within Saudi Arabia’s development and investment strategy. He made note of the scale of capital expected to go into the sector in coming years, saying: “We have set a very aggressive, but we believe an achievable target, for AI, and we estimate in the short term about $30 billion immediately of investments.”

This emphasis on long-term investment and sustainability targets was echoed across panels at Momentum 2025, during which discussions on essential partnerships between public and private sectors were highlighted.

The shared ambition of translating the Kingdom’s goals into tangible outcomes was particularly essential within the banking sector, as it plays a central role in facilitating both projects and partnerships.

During the “Champions of Sectoral Transformation: Development Funds and Their Ecosystems” panel, Saudi National Bank CEO Tareq Al-Sadhan shed light on the importance of partnerships facilitated via financial institutions.

He explained how they help manage risk while supporting the Kingdom’s ambitions.

“We have different models that we are working on with development funds. We co-financed in certain projects where we see the risk is higher in terms of going alone as a bank to support a certain project,” the CEO said.

Al-Sadhan referred to the role of development funds as an enabler for banks to expand their participation and support for projects without assuming major risk.

“The role of the development fund definitely is to give more comfort to the banking sector to also extend the support … we don’t compete with each other; we always complement each other” he added.