By Kevin Keenan, VP, corporate communications, Reltio
In the hospitality business, every interaction counts. Guests expect instant recognition, personalized experiences, and seamless service whether they’re booking a stay, checking in, or redeeming loyalty points. For IHG Hotels & Resorts, a company with more than 6,800 hotels across 100+ countries and 145 million loyalty members, that expectation translates into one thing: trusted, real-time data at a global scale.
But like many global enterprises, IHG’s data was fragmented across legacy systems. Different regions and brands stored guest information in separate data sources, creating inconsistencies that limited the company’s ability to personalize experiences and innovate quickly.
Kimberly Choate, head of property and guest Integrations at IHG, captured it well. “Modernizing legacy data systems is essential to providing accurate, real-time information that can enhance guest experiences and support business growth,” she said.
That mindset is what led IHG to embark on a bold data modernization journey, and in doing so, lay the groundwork for the AI future of hospitality.
The new foundation for growth
For years, IHG Hotels & Resorts faced a familiar challenge: critical guest data scattered across legacy systems and regional silos. The lack of a single, trusted view made it harder to personalize stays, strengthen loyalty programs, and move as quickly as the business demanded.
The breakthrough came when IHG adopted a cloud-native platform built to unify and manage data in real time. Developed by enterprise data company Reltio, the technology became the backbone of IHG’s data transformation — turning fragmented systems into a single source of truth that now supports operations worldwide.
The results came fast. Within ten weeks, IHG reduced duplicate guest profiles by 34%, resolved up to 95% of system performance issues, and began processing 1.5 million messages each day. Those gains streamlined operations and gave teams across the company the confidence to act on accurate, up-to-date information.
“We no longer have to think about the platform,” one IHG engineer said. “We can focus on what the data enables.”
That’s the quiet revolution happening inside many global enterprises today. As companies modernize their foundations for the age of AI and personalization, trusted, unified data is becoming their most valuable asset and their new engine for growth.
Data readiness is AI readiness
The same principles that enabled IHG to improve customer experiences will enable it to lead in the age of artificial intelligence. AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on. For enterprises, that means investing in systems that unify, cleanse, and contextualize information at scale.
Reltio’s agentic data fabric is designed for exactly that. It ensures data is accurate, connected, and instantly available to any application, user, or AI agent. In IHG’s case, that means future-ready capabilities like:
Real-time personalization through AI-driven insights.Predictive analytics to anticipate guest preferences and optimize operations.Smarter decision-making across hotel development, sales, and loyalty programs.
By laying this foundation now, IHG is future-proofing its data for the AI-driven enterprise era, where agents, bots, and copilots will rely on trusted, context-rich data to power every interaction.
In the years ahead, every enterprise will need to follow a similar path. The companies that thrive won’t just use AI — they’ll feed it the best possible data. That’s what turns AI from a buzzword into a business advantage.
The future of hospitality and enterprise data
IHG’s journey isn’t over. The company is now expanding its unified data foundation to include more domains and regions. It plans to integrate hotel and ownership data, enable real-time contact validation, and support location-based services, all powered by the same trusted data core.
“Using Reltio as our master data management platform opens up new opportunities to expand into more regions and supports IHG’s strategic growth,” Choate said.
This isn’t just a hospitality story. It’s a blueprint for every enterprise navigating digital transformation and AI adoption. The lesson is clear: before you can deploy AI effectively, you need to unify your data. Trusted data is the foundation for innovation, growth, and resilience in the AI era.
IHG’s story shows what’s possible when enterprises modernize their data foundations.
To help other organizations accelerate their journey, Reltio has outlined the 10 Rules for Data Readiness in the Age of AI — a practical framework for ensuring your data is ready to power the next generation of business intelligence.
This post was created by Reltio with Insider Studios.
