The phone becomes a service channel again

AI voice agent Roamed winner ABN AMRO Start-up Pitches

At the Hotel Leaders Network 2026 in the Beurs van Berlage, the audience convincingly chose Roamed as the winner of the Start-up Pitches powered by ABN AMRO. And probably not without reason. Founder and CEO Joost van Bommel's AI-driven voice agent for hotels touches on a pain point that almost every hotel recognises: the phone that keeps ringing while no one answers.

“In the end, it always revolves around the question: what problem are you solving?” says Van Bommel. “There are now thousands of AI tools, but many of them are solutions in search of a problem. We have built something that hotels immediately say: yes, we need this.”

Van Bommel knows hotel practice from the inside. He worked at citizenM for seven years, where his responsibilities included the website and the loyalty programme mycitizenM+. During that period, the chain grew from 12 to 36 hotels. “I was always on the cutting edge of digital product and guest experience,” he says. “We regularly walked along on the floor and in customer service. Then you see where it pinches.”

That bottleneck proved remarkably persistent: telephony. While chat and e-mail became increasingly automated, the phone remained a labour-intensive and multilingual process. “You had to have not only someone answering the phone, but also someone speaking multiple languages. And often there was simply no answer. Especially when it was morning on the US east coast, the line was red hot. Our pilots also show that a third of reservation calls (38 per cent) come in outside office hours, at times when telephone accessibility is often limited. When those calls are not taken up immediately, the likelihood of frustration and abandonment arguably increases. With that, every minute on hold is not only a service moment, but also a commercial risk.”

The emergence of AI voice technology brought the solution into view. “The phone is perhaps the oldest service channel, but also the last one to be really digitised now. For me, that was simple arithmetic: one and one is two.”

Available 24/7, in any language

Roamed developed an AI voice agent that takes over the hotel phone. Not a chatbot or external call centre, but software that makes calls, answers questions and - if necessary - executes actions in PMS or housekeeping systems. During his pitch at the Hotel Leaders Network, Van Bommel sharply outlined the problem: hotels receive on average about 75 calls a day with practical questions. “Teams are often too small and too expensive to handle that flow continuously. The result: waiting times, frustration and missed sales.”

The AI agent answers calls instantly, day and night and in any language. Frequently asked questions are answered based on a hotel-specific knowledge base. More complex questions, such as adjusting reservations, can be handled via integrations with hotel systems. If the AI is unable to resolve them, the call is transferred to a member of staff.

According to Van Bommel, that is also where the biggest profit lies. “With our solution, the phone is picked up immediately and the guest gets an immediate answer. That can even lead to extra turnover, because reservations are no longer lost and you don't have to pay commission to OTAs.”

More time for genuine hospitality

An often-heard concern is that technology is putting pressure on the human touch in hospitality. Van Bommel sees the opposite happening. “We mainly take over the repetitive questions: where can I park, what time is check-in? This actually gives employees more time for the guest in front of them or who has a more complex question.”

According to him, the first experiences in hotels where Roamed is running are positive. “Guests are fine with it, as long as they are helped immediately. Sometimes they notice they are talking to AI, but they don't care much. Quick and clear answer is what matters.”

Employees also respond positively. “They can focus on the guest in the lobby instead of having to interrupt the phone every time. That gives peace of mind and better service.”

Phone number back on website

In recent years, more and more companies - including hotels - actually seem to make their phone number less visible on the website to reduce the number of phone calls. According to Van Bommel, this is a missed opportunity. “I am not of the school that puts the phone number as small as possible on the site. With a good AI solution, you can actually display it prominently again. Then the phone becomes a service channel again instead of a problem.”

Roamed is currently self-funded by its founders and is already running in a number of hotels. The focus is on further development of the voice agent and expansion to more locations. “Roamed is now running in a select group of hotels with which we are further refining the technology. The ambition is clear given the discussions we are already having: to be active in at least five European markets within a year,” Van Bommel states. “After all, the phone problem is universal, from boutique hotels in Amsterdam to large chains in London. We are now building the infrastructure to serve thousands of hotels.”