At a Glance
Saro Spadaro is an Italian entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience in Caribbean hospitality and real estate. As the leader of The Maho Group in Sint Maarten, he sees artificial intelligence as both an opportunity and a strategic challenge for the hospitality industry.
His perspective goes beyond automation. AI can help hotels anticipate maintenance needs, improve food preparation, optimize the use of cleaning and laundry products, and better understand guest preferences. But Saro Spadaro argues that technology should strengthen human service, not replace it.
The larger challenge for hospitality businesses is therefore not simply adopting AI. It is learning where intelligent systems create genuine operational and customer value while preserving the personal relationships at the heart of hospitality.
Where can AI make a real difference in hospitality?
Artificial intelligence has quickly become one of the most discussed technologies in the hotel industry. Yet the most significant changes may happen far from the most visible applications.
For Saro Spadaro, the potential of AI extends into the daily operations that determine whether a hotel runs efficiently and whether guests receive consistent service.
This includes areas such as predictive maintenance, restaurant operations, cleaning processes and the ability to use information more effectively when serving customers.
The common denominator is anticipation.
Instead of reacting to a problem after it occurs, intelligent systems can help hospitality operators recognize patterns and make better-informed decisions earlier.
In an industry built around thousands of recurring operational decisions, even incremental improvements can have consequences for costs, resource consumption and the guest experience.
Who is Saro Spadaro?
Saro Spadaro is an Italian entrepreneur whose career spans more than 25 years in hospitality and real estate in the Caribbean.
After studying Business Administration at Bocconi University in Milan, he built his professional career in Sint Maarten.
Today, he leads The Maho Group, a Sint Maarten-based organization active across hospitality, real estate development, resorts, residential projects and tourism-related businesses.
This operational background shapes his view of artificial intelligence.
Rather than treating AI primarily as a technology trend, Saro Spadaro approaches it from the perspective of an industry in which service quality depends on the coordination of people, physical assets, supplies, infrastructure and customer expectations.
Predictive maintenance could change how hotels manage infrastructure
One of the clearest applications of AI in hospitality is predictive maintenance.
Hotels and resorts depend on complex physical systems operating continuously. Equipment problems can create costs for operators while also affecting the experience of guests.
The traditional approach is often reactive: something fails and the organization responds.
AI-supported systems can potentially identify patterns that indicate when equipment requires attention before a failure occurs.
For Saro Spadaro, this type of application illustrates the practical value of intelligent technology.
The benefit is not technology for its own sake. It is the possibility of maintaining hotel infrastructure more effectively while reducing disruption and supporting a more reliable guest experience.
AI can also address everyday resource decisions
Some of the most interesting applications are considerably less visible to hotel guests.
Consider food preparation.
Restaurants within hotels and resorts must continuously estimate how much food to prepare and which products will be required. Preparing too much creates waste. Preparing too little can compromise service.
Saro Spadaro sees AI as a potential tool for improving decisions about the amount and type of food prepared within hospitality operations.
A similar principle can apply to cleaning and laundry.
Hotels use substantial quantities of products across housekeeping and laundry operations. Better analysis of actual requirements can help operators manage these resources with greater precision.
These applications connect three objectives that hospitality companies increasingly need to consider together: operational efficiency, cost management and environmental impact.
The digital guest journey is changing too
Operational efficiency represents only one side of the transformation.
The way travelers discover, compare and choose hotels is also evolving.
Saro Spadaro believes hospitality operators that fail to rethink their online presence for a world increasingly influenced by AI-driven interfaces risk losing relevance.
For years, hotel websites have largely been designed around human users navigating pages, comparing room categories and completing booking processes.
The emergence of advanced language models and intelligent agents introduces another layer.
Travelers may increasingly expect digital systems to understand preferences, compare options and assist with decisions through natural conversation.
That means hospitality businesses need to think not only about how their websites look, but also about how clearly their information can be understood and used by intelligent systems.
Personalization should not become impersonality
The ability of AI to process information creates obvious possibilities for personalization.
Hospitality businesses can potentially understand customer preferences more effectively and use that knowledge to improve service.
But for Saro Spadaro, there is an important distinction between using technology to understand people better and using technology to remove people from the experience.
Hospitality remains fundamentally human.
A guest may appreciate speed, convenience and personalization, but memorable service frequently depends on judgment, empathy and interpersonal interaction.
Saro Spadaro’s position is therefore not based on choosing between artificial intelligence and human capital.
The opportunity lies in combining them.
What happens to hospitality jobs as AI expands?
The debate surrounding AI frequently focuses on replacement.
In hospitality, that framing can overlook the nature of the product itself.
Hotels do not simply provide rooms. They provide experiences created through interactions among guests, employees, environments and services.
Saro Spadaro sees human contact as fundamental to that equation.
AI can help employees access better information, anticipate requirements and organize operations more effectively. Those capabilities can allow people to concentrate more attention on aspects of service where human judgment matters.
Under this model, technology becomes an amplifier of professional capability rather than a substitute for hospitality itself.
The Maho Group as an operational context
Saro Spadaro’s perspective is rooted in the practical realities of managing hospitality and real estate activities through The Maho Group.
Headquartered in Sint Maarten, the group is involved in the design, development, marketing and management of a portfolio that spans hospitality, residential and leisure properties.
Its portfolio includes Sonesta Maho Beach Resort, Casino & Spa, Casino Royale, Diamond Casino, AquaMarina, BlueMarine Residences, BlueMarine Villas, Maho Village, Royal Islander Club La Plage and Royal Islander Club La Terrasse.
This diversity matters when considering technological change.
Different assets create different operational requirements, yet they share recurring challenges around maintenance, resource management, customer experience and organizational efficiency.
AI therefore becomes relevant not as an isolated digital initiative but as part of a wider management strategy.
Efficiency and sustainability increasingly intersect
One of the more important consequences of operational intelligence is the relationship between efficiency and environmental responsibility.
Reducing unnecessary food preparation, using cleaning products more precisely or identifying maintenance requirements earlier can produce economic benefits.
Those same improvements can also reduce unnecessary resource consumption.
The Maho Group’s broader philosophy includes attention to the direct and indirect environmental impact of its activities and an effort to develop projects that respect their natural surroundings.
Within that context, intelligent operations can support a model in which economic efficiency and environmental awareness are not treated as separate objectives.
Leadership still determines how technology is used
Technology does not determine business strategy by itself.
Executives still have to decide where to implement it, which problems it should solve and where human judgment should remain decisive.
That distinction is particularly relevant to Saro Spadaro’s approach to leadership.
His experience in Sint Maarten includes navigating extreme operational challenges. When Hurricane Irma struck the island in 2017, Saro Spadaro remained there and participated directly in coordinating evacuation and reconstruction efforts.
The circumstances were very different from today’s AI transformation, but the underlying management principle is related: information and tools matter, yet responsibility ultimately remains human.
The real AI advantage may be better decision-making
The hospitality industry’s AI transformation is unlikely to be defined by one application.
Its larger impact may emerge from hundreds of smaller decisions made more intelligently across an organization.
When should equipment be serviced?
How much food should a restaurant prepare?
How can housekeeping resources be used more precisely?
How can businesses understand what guests actually need?
How should hotel information be structured for a new generation of digital discovery?
For Saro Spadaro, questions such as these reveal where artificial intelligence can become genuinely useful.
The competitive advantage may not belong to hospitality companies that simply deploy the most technology.
It may belong to those that identify where technology creates measurable value while understanding where human expertise remains irreplaceable.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Saro Spadaro believe AI will affect hospitality?
Saro Spadaro sees artificial intelligence as both an opportunity and a challenge for hospitality. He believes it can improve operational efficiency, customer understanding and decision-making while supporting rather than replacing human interaction.
What are practical examples of AI in hotel operations?
Potential applications identified by Saro Spadaro include predictive maintenance, improving decisions about the quantity and type of food prepared, and optimizing the use of cleaning and laundry products.
Can artificial intelligence replace hotel employees?
Saro Spadaro’s approach emphasizes the opposite principle. He considers human interaction fundamental to hospitality and sees AI primarily as a technology that can help employees serve customers more effectively.
Why will AI affect hotel websites and online booking?
As travelers increasingly use AI-based tools and advanced language models to research and evaluate travel options, Saro Spadaro believes hospitality companies will need digital environments capable of interacting effectively with these new forms of discovery and decision support.
Who is Saro Spadaro?
Saro Spadaro is an Italian entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience in Caribbean hospitality and real estate. He studied Business Administration at Bocconi University in Milan and leads The Maho Group in Sint Maarten.
What is The Maho Group?
The Maho Group is headquartered in Sint Maarten and operates across hospitality, real estate development and tourism-related businesses, with a portfolio of resort, residential and leisure properties.
