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Two boutique hotels · Ghent

One visit in ten to the new website arrives through an AI assistant

Harmony has run Hotel Harmony on the Kraanlei for 21 years and Ghent Urbanist for three, with one team across both houses. The Hotel Harmony website sat untouched for about nine years, because nobody on a reception team can be asked to learn WordPress. Both sites were rebuilt this year. Within weeks, more than one visit in ten was arriving through an AI assistant.

Rooms
77
Location
Ghent, Belgium
Live since
2025
Hotel Harmony & Ghent Urbanist
The result10%+Of website visits arrive through an AI assistant
10%+
Of website visits arrive through an AI assistant
85%+
Of replies to guests go out without staff
<10s
Median time to an answer
3,000+
Arriving bookings reached on WhatsApp this year

Two hotels, one team, and a website nobody could open

Hotel Harmony sits on the Kraanlei: forty rooms in nine different shapes, a bar on the water and a heated pool in the courtyard. Ten minutes away on the Augustijnenkaai, Ghent Urbanist has thirty-seven rooms and a younger crowd. Harmony opened the first with her father twenty-one years ago and took it over when he stepped back. One company, one team, both houses.

The front desk carried everything. Questions arrived by email, by phone, through the Mews chat, through Booking.com's inbox, and now and then through Facebook. Mostly the same questions, asked again. Every room at Harmony is different, so people ring up about one specific room, and Ghent isn't a city you drive into by instinct.

The websites were the part nobody could touch. Both had been built in WordPress by an agency, and a reception team isn't an IT team. Training someone new every time meant the sites just stayed as they were. Harmony reckons the Hotel Harmony one hadn't changed in about nine years.

Hotel Harmony & Ghent Urbanist

The same hotel, nine years apart

On the left, the site that had sat still for the best part of a decade. On the right, the one Harmony now changes herself by describing what she wants.

Both frames scroll, like the real pages

Before
Full-page screenshot of Hotel Harmony's old hotel website, a dark grey layout with an all-caps welcome headline

Built in WordPress by an agency. The most recent thing on the homepage was a blog post from March 2022.

After
hotel-harmony.be
Full-page screenshot of Hotel Harmony's new hotel website, with a photograph of the building on the Leie and the name set in a large serif

Same hotel, rebuilt. Three languages, the assistant on every page, and a gift voucher page Harmony added by asking for one.

Harmony, in her own words

Under two minutes on what changed, filmed in the bar at Ghent Urbanist.

Filmed at Ghent Urbanist. English subtitles.

The same jobs, then and now

Four things that used to land on the front desk at two hotels in the centre of Ghent.

  1. Changing a detail on the website

    Before

    Somebody on reception had to learn WordPress first, so mostly the change waited. The Hotel Harmony site went about nine years without a real update.

    Now

    Harmony describes what she wants and it appears. She asked for a gift voucher page and got a gift voucher page.

  2. A question at 23:00

    Before

    Email, the Mews chat, Booking.com's inbox, sometimes Facebook. The same questions, answered again the next morning.

    Now

    Answered in under ten seconds, in the guest's own language, on WhatsApp. Fewer than 750 replies all year needed a person to write them.

  3. Booking a parking space

    Before

    The guest asked, and a receptionist emailed to arrange it. Ghent is not a city you park in by luck.

    Now

    Guests book it themselves before they arrive. Parking is the biggest single line in the upsell report.

  4. Warning every guest at once

    Before

    A scam aimed at hotel guests travels faster than a mail merge, and an email that lands in a spam folder warns nobody.

    Now

    Every guest had a WhatsApp inside the hour. The same button sends a fire drill notice to everyone checked in.

What they switched on

Both websites, the messages that follow a booking, a guest app with nothing to download, and the extras guests book themselves. All of it reads from one set of answers, and what a guest books lands back in Mews.

The traveller journey, from discovery through to post-stay
  1. Discovery (this part)
  2. Booking (this part)
  3. Pre-arrival (this part)
  4. In-stay (this part)
  5. Post-stay (this part)

Connected to

  • Mews

The numbers, in full

Platform figures for both hotels from January to late September 2026, and a full week of Google Analytics on the rebuilt Hotel Harmony site. Every figure is rounded down to a floor both properties passed.

  • 10%+

    Of website visits arrive through an AI assistant

    Google Analytics files ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini under a single AI Assistant channel. Over a full week a few weeks after launch, that channel was Hotel Harmony's third biggest source of sessions, behind organic search and direct.

  • 85%+

    Of replies to guests go out without staff

    More than 4,500 of the 5,200+ replies sent across both hotels this year came from the assistant. Fewer than 750 were typed by a person.

  • <10s

    Median time to an answer

    9 seconds at Hotel Harmony, 7 at Ghent Urbanist. When a message does reach a person, the median reply takes over 25 minutes. That gap is what the assistant covers.

  • 3,000+

    Arriving bookings reached on WhatsApp this year

    More than 3,000 of the 7,000+ bookings arriving so far this year, and over 2,000 of those guests wrote back. The ceiling is phone numbers: roughly one booking in six arrives without one.

Questions about rebuilding a hotel website

Can I change my hotel website myself without a developer?

Yes. You describe the change and the platform makes it. At Hotel Harmony, Harmony asked for a gift voucher page and got one, after about nine years of a WordPress site nobody on her reception team could open. No agency ticket, no training, no IT knowledge.

Do AI search engines like ChatGPT actually send traffic to hotel websites?

Yes, and it already shows up in the analytics. Over a full week a few weeks after Hotel Harmony's new site launched, more than one session in ten came through Google Analytics' AI Assistant channel, which groups ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini. It ranked third, behind organic search and direct.

Does an AI assistant make a family-run hotel feel less personal?

It doesn't at Hotel Harmony, which has held a Booking.com score above nine for 21 years. The team can step into any conversation at any moment, and the owner says guests often don't notice the assistant started it. The tone is set by the hotel, not by the tool.

What happens to guest messages that arrive on email, Booking.com and Facebook?

They end up in one inbox instead of five. Hotel Harmony's front desk used to watch email, the phone, the Mews chat, Booking.com's message thread and the occasional Facebook message separately. Across both hotels this year, more than 4,500 replies went out without anyone typing them.

Does AskWhisper work with Mews?

Yes. Hotel Harmony and Ghent Urbanist both run Mews. Arrivals and stay details flow into the guest journey automatically, and anything a guest books along the way, like parking or an early check-in, lands back in the PMS as an extra on the reservation.
“If you can't see the wood for the trees, I'd definitely recommend working with AskWhisper. Martijn and his whole team are always there. For your questions, for your suggestions, they always listen and they're always reachable.”
Harmony, ownerTwo boutique hotels · Ghent

Sounds like your hotel?

  • Two or three houses run by one team, with one set of answers between them
  • A website an agency built and nobody on staff can change
  • Travellers arriving from a dozen countries, asking the same things in four languages
  • A front desk that would rather host people than retype the parking instructions

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Harmony has run Hotel Harmony on the Kraanlei for 21 years and Ghent Urbanist for three, with one team across both houses. The Hotel Harmony website sat untouched for about nine years, because nobody on a reception team can be asked to learn WordPress. Both sites were rebuilt this year. Within weeks, more than one visit in ten was arriving through an AI assistant.