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EnglishAt 3 a.m., the lights of Huaihua, Hunan, had faded into darkness—but Wang Wenqiang, deputy manager of the Berman Hotel in Huaihua, was jolted awake by an urgent call: A newly hired front-desk employee had failed to properly handle a guest’s room change request, resulting in a customer complaint demanding compensation.
Problems like this were not new.
In recent years, Dongcheng Group—the parent company of Berman Hotels—has been accelerating its "Thousand Cities, Ten Thousand Stores" strategy, leading to explosive growth in the number of hotel locations. Wang Wenqiang had worked hard for a year, rising from front-desk staff to manager and then to store manager, ready to make his mark. But reality hit him hard:
The turnover rate among front-desk staff remained stubbornly high; some employees quit just one week after training. Employee skills varied widely: even with guidance from senior trainers at headquarters, it took more than a month for newcomers to become fully competent. Meanwhile, business guests expect noise issues resolved within five minutes; family guests have needs spanning three generations; pet owners demand "dedicated concierge services." With guests' demands so diverse, staff often "freeze up" when faced with unexpected situations.
Wang Wenqiang struggled with his team's lack of capability, which hindered performance growth—and even left him losing hair.
AI Training Prepares Employees for Duty in Just 2 Hours
A turning point came in June this year, when Dongcheng Group rolled out DingTalk's "AI Practice" across the entire group. Wang Wenqiang immediately organized his managers and front-desk staff to start using the system. Two months later, the results were striking: New employees could become fully operational after just two hours of AI training, with their on-the-job proficiency improving by 90%. Customer complaints dropped significantly.
This manager, once tormented by late-night calls to the point of insomnia, now leisurely enjoys kung fu tea in his office: "In the past, managers trained employees. Now, AI trains employees."
The "Manpower Efficiency Dilemma" Behind Chain Expansion
The 3 a.m. complaint call is just a microcosm of the challenges facing China's chain hotel management industry.
In recent years, Dongcheng Group has operated 3,500 hotels across more than 200 cities worldwide, serving 130,000 customers daily through 70,000 employees. While the chain has expanded rapidly, the front desk—a core service function—faces severe challenges: an average annual turnover rate of 45%, lengthy and costly training cycles, and other bottlenecks that have become "nails" holding back growth.
This problem is not unique to Dongcheng—it reflects a common bottleneck across the entire industry.
The Pain of Traditional Training
At the headquarters level: Instructor resources are scarce, external hiring is expensive, training programs are heavy, and regional dispersion makes coverage difficult. Course completion relies on manual checks, with no quantitative feedback mechanism.
At the front desk level: Learning time is fragmented, training is passive, and courses tend to be theoretical with little exposure to real-world scenarios, making it hard to translate knowledge into practical service skills.
At the management level: The experience of top-performing store managers is hard to codify, and the traditional mentorship model is inefficient and difficult to replicate.
In the past, new hires had to record operational videos and submit them for manager review—a process that took about a month and covered only four basic modules, leaving new employees still struggling to master their roles on the job.
AI Tutors Go Live: Conversational, Real-World Simulations
Starting in June this year, Dongcheng Group officially launched DingTalk's AI Practice, equipping every front-desk employee with a "gold-standard store tutor."
The system simulates real guest interactions in a conversational format: An AI plays the role of a guest, constantly posing challenging questions, while employees respond by answering and resolving problems, thereby honing their on-the-spot problem-solving skills.
After the training session ends, the AI provides a comprehensive score based on the employee's responses, along with detailed analysis covering key talking points, service attitude, customer understanding, and problem-solving effectiveness—helping employees pinpoint areas for improvement.
Wang Wenqiang said, "The key to AI Practice is embedding the expertise of gold-standard concierges into new employees' minds like an operating system—transforming them from 'armchair experts' into 'battle-tested pros.'"
Dramatic Results: Cost Reduction, Efficiency Gains, Service Upgrades
With AI Practice, Dongcheng has achieved low-cost, large-scale replication of gold-standard service capabilities, significantly boosting standardization and core competitiveness.
New employees respond faster, complaints decrease, and customer satisfaction rises. Across more than 3,000 stores nationwide, the program has saved over 3 million yuan in training labor costs.
Yang Wenjun, a post-00s front-desk employee at the Berman Hotel in Zhanjiang, initially felt anxious because she missed key information during check-in. After AI Practice went live, she completed 43 training sessions in just one week, totaling more than 14 hours—and her performance improved from failing to over 90 points.
She admitted, "I used to be afraid to ask questions for fear of being called slow. AI lets me practice without pressure, improve anytime, anywhere, and clearly see where I need to improve." Today, she is preparing for her manager certification exam, and AI Practice has become her "score-boosting tool," giving her newfound confidence.
AI-Powered "Talent Insurance"
The 2024 China Hotel Industry Development Report shows that as of the end of 2023, China had 90,600 chain hotels, with a chain operation rate of 40.95%. As the industry moves toward larger scale, digital transformation has become the norm.
While competitors are still racing to expand, Dongcheng has used AI to push manpower efficiency and service quality to new heights: Training costs have plummeted, new employees are twice as capable, service experiences are better, and consumer trust is growing.
Wang Wenqiang summed up: "The core of the service industry is people. AI Practice has brought a ray of hope to the long-standing inefficiency of talent development. Today, it's not just front-desk staff—employees in the group's training department and brand divisions are also gradually adopting AI Practice, enabling career advancement for everyone."
AI transforms the experience of top-performing employees into replicable digital assets, empowering every staff member equally—effectively providing "talent insurance" for chain hotels.
In Dongcheng's AI testing ground, what's emerging isn't just faster growth—it's a set of antifragile development principles:
Empower every employee to become a "hexagonal warrior"; turn every customer feedback into fuel for iteration; and use every crisis simulation as a springboard for growth.
As the industry grapples with price wars and growth anxiety, Dongcheng has used AI to ignite a new engine for the future of the hotel sector.
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