Designing for Experience: How ARIA Hotel Group is Using AI to Redefine Luxury Travel

By Favour Patrick | Categories: Solution Engineering

Blending Heritage, Technology, and Human Touch to Inspire the Modern Traveler

In a world where travelers seek not just destinations but meaningful experiences, ARIA Hotel Group faced a challenge shared by many premium hospitality brands: how to attract a more sophisticated audience while celebrating the authentic heritage of each property.

Their portfolio - rooted in history, culture, and craftsmanship - needed a digital experience that could communicate more than availability or amenities. It needed to tell a story.

The Challenge: Capturing Modern Sophistication Through Heritage

ARIA’s hotels are located in some of the most culturally rich settings, each with its own architecture, traditions, and local artistry.
The goal was not only to showcase these elements online but to make them feel alive, transforming the website into an interactive gateway to each location’s spirit.

The existing digital presence, while elegant, didn’t yet reflect the depth of ARIA’s heritage or the personalization that modern luxury travelers expect.
Sophisticated guests were looking for something more: a way to connect before they arrived - to sense the atmosphere, the rhythm, and the story behind each stay.

The Solution: Five MVPs for Five Unique Experiences

To meet this challenge, the Kimolian Team, led by Eleni and Kasia, embarked on a mission to merge design, AI, and storytelling into a seamless digital strategy.
Over an intensive innovation sprint, they delivered five MVPs, each one designed to help users craft unique travel experiences tailored to the character of ARIA’s properties.

Each MVP focused on a specific pillar of the ARIA brand experience:

Local Heritage Explorer – highlighting cultural landmarks, art, and gastronomy connected to each hotel.
Personalized Itinerary Builder – powered by AI, helping guests create immersive, day-by-day travel plans.
Visual Storytelling Interface – using high-impact imagery and narratives that evoke the soul of each destination.
Emotion-Driven Booking Flow – simplifying reservation journeys through mood-based recommendations.

The Process: Where AI Meets Human Insight

The Kimolian team used a human-centered approach powered by intelligent tools:

Lovable for fast, AI-assisted MVP development.
ChatGPT Assistants for generating adaptive content and a conversational style travel guide.
Uizard for rapid visual prototyping and interface refinement.
MIRO AI for collaborative research gathering, mapping user emotions, and clustering feedback.

Five cross-functional teams of five worked in parallel - designers, product thinkers, and AI specialists - iterating daily to ensure that each MVP felt both digitally advanced and emotionally grounded.
What emerged was not just a collection of prototypes but a vision for a new kind of hospitality storytelling - one where technology enhances heritage instead of overshadowing it.

The Impact: A New Era of Intelligent Hospitality

The new digital experiences gave ARIA Hotel Group a foundation for data-driven personalization and cultural storytelling that resonates with high-end travelers.
Visitors can now discover destinations through layers of meaning: historical narratives, local artistry, and personal connections - all brought together through AI-driven interaction and elegant design.

About ARIA Hotel Group’s Innovation Journey

ARIA Hotel Group continues to lead by blending tradition and innovation, embracing emerging technologies that honor each destination’s soul while meeting the expectations of tomorrow’s traveler.
Through collaboration with the Kimolian Team, ARIA is redefining what it means to explore - turning digital touchpoints into experiences that inspire, connect, and endure.