Guest expectations moved because consumer technology moved. Online check-in, a digital key and a message thread that answers in minutes are now unremarkable, which means a hotel that cannot offer them stands out for the wrong reason. The four tools below cover the journey from booking to check-out. What matters as much as picking one is what happens behind it.

Which parts of the guest journey does each tool cover?

Prices and integration counts are as each vendor published them. Confirm both directly before you budget.

AeroGuest: check-in, keys and payments in one place

AeroGuest was built so that hoteliers spend less time on the transactional part of arrival and more on the personal part. AeroGuest Journey gives guests online check-in, room selection, a digital room key and a guest app. AeroGuest Flow gives general managers and front desk staff one dashboard for reservations, communications, usage and payments. AeroGuest Payments handles contactless transactions, pre-payment and automatic payment updates, and AeroGuest Communications schedules email, SMS and in-app messages from a single place. It serves small, medium and enterprise properties, and it integrates with major PMSs, payment providers and digital key providers.

The reason it opens this list is the arrival moment. A guest landing at midnight after a delayed flight is the clearest case in hospitality for removing a form and a queue. Sweeply has published work on how AeroGuest and real-time guest preferences connect to housekeeping, which is also our disclosure: we are not a neutral party on this one.

Duve: pre-arrival engagement and upselling

Duve earns its place on pre-arrival. Guests upload identity documents and sign paperwork electronically before they travel, which removes both the queue and the admin behind it. A communication hub centralises SMS, email and chat. Upsells are personalised to guest preferences rather than sent to everyone. Mobile key integration issues digital keys from anywhere, a branded web app carries hotel information and chat, and an analytics dashboard supports guest segmentation.

Duve serves hotels, hostels and vacation rentals, and publishes integrations with 100+ PMSs, payment service providers and digital key providers. Pricing starts at EUR 5 per room per month with a premium tier at EUR 9 and enterprise options.

Per-room pricing is worth modelling before you compare. At 40 rooms, EUR 5 per room per month is EUR 200; at 300 rooms it is EUR 1,500. Flat-fee and per-room models cross over somewhere in the middle of that range, and where they cross depends entirely on your property.

Runnr.ai: WhatsApp messaging during the stay

Runnr.ai is an AI-powered virtual concierge that runs on the channel most guests already use. Its omni-language support auto-translates both sides of the conversation, proactive messaging keeps contact going pre-arrival and post-stay, and a messaging dashboard gives staff a view of every thread with the option to take over from the AI when a human is needed. Guest analytics track message and request types, which over a season tells you what your guests actually ask for.

It works with hotels of all sizes, integrates with major management and guest-facing tools, and is free to try before EUR 3 per room per month.

The towel-by-the-pool request is the honest test of a tool like this. Sending the message is the easy half. The extra towel arriving before the guest has dried off is the half that depends on your operation.

UpMarket: AI concierge and revenue automation

UpMarket uses AI across enquiry, booking and stay, and is used by over 1,000 properties from vacation rentals to hotels, B&Bs and resorts. Its virtual concierge runs through instant messaging apps, DirectBook chat answers enquiries and takes direct bookings around the clock, online check-in reports guest information to local authorities automatically where compliance requires it, and a guest app holds stay information and services. Digital keys are delivered by email or messaging, payments are automated from one dashboard, and upselling is tailored by AI to guest preference and behaviour.

UpMarket publishes integrations with over 20 leading PMS platforms and will consider new ones on request. Pricing is tailored by property type, with monthly and annual plans and a one-month free trial.

What happens after the guest sends the request?

Every tool above is a front end. It captures intent brilliantly and then hands you a task: an early check-in that needs a room finished sooner, a maintenance fault reported over WhatsApp at eleven at night, a late check-out that changes the cleaning order for a whole floor. If that task arrives as a message in an inbox, someone has to read it, understand it and tell the right person, and that gap is where guest experience is usually lost.

Sweeply is the operational layer that closes it. It sits on top of the PMS rather than replacing it, connects to 20+ property management systems, and turns guest-facing events into assigned work with an owner and a status. A housekeeping flag becomes a maintenance task without a phone call. A guest request logged through Guest Connect lands with the person who can complete it.

The effect is measurable. THE FLAG, six hotels in Zurich running on Apaleo, processed 1,800 reservation traces with five misses, saved more than eight hours a week and recorded 80% fewer complaint-related tasks after automating the path from reservation remark to housekeeping task. Sweeply’s independent listing and reviews sit on Hotel Tech Report if you want a third-party view.

If you are building the wider stack, what smart hotels do with those moments and how digital experiences build guest loyalty cover the commercial side, and the integrations list shows which systems connect today.

Where this list does not apply

We have a relationship with one of the four. Sweeply has published integration work with AeroGuest, so its inclusion is an interested recommendation rather than a neutral ranking. Read the other three as the genuinely independent part of this list.

Pricing and integration counts move. Every figure here is what the vendor published at the time of writing, and per-room pricing in particular changes with tier and contract length. Treat the table as a starting point for four quotes, not as a price list.

Four tools is also more than most properties need. If you already have online check-in through your PMS, adding a second guest app creates two places for the same information to live and two places for it to be wrong. Buy the gap you actually have.

And none of this fixes an operational problem. If extra towels take an hour because the property is short-staffed at three in the afternoon, a faster message makes the wait more visible rather than shorter. Guest-facing technology raises expectations. It is worth adding only once you are confident the operation behind it can meet them.

Get a price for the operational layer without booking a demo

The four tools above will each quote you. For the layer that fulfils what they capture, email your sellable room count, your PMS, the number of properties and the modules you want (housekeeping, maintenance, guest connect, AI agents) to hello@getsweeply.com. You will get an exact quote back, with the EUR 100 per property onboarding fee itemised separately, and no demo is required to receive it.