Digital tools and AI, made practical.
Three levels: the everyday digital tools, AI done well, and what's possible beyond the chatbot. Real tasks, done live. No laptop needed.
[before 1:30] Workbooks and pens on every seat. Check the bottom bar says .
Find your volunteer now. "Who has a business website and doesn't mind us using it as the example today?" Public website only. Open it in a tab to check it loads, and ask for one or two of their own photos. Backup: Gros Morne Adventures (grosmorneadventures.com), or Fishers' Loft Inn (fishersloft.com) for an accommodation-heavy room. No internet: everything plays from the slides with the made-up .
[0:00 · 2 min] One line on who you are. Thank Hospitality NL and the venue. "Three levels today. First the everyday digital tools. Then AI, done properly. Then a look at what's possible beyond the chatbot. Questions any time."
Day before: signed in and tested: your AI assistant (fresh chat), Google Forms, Canva, opentable.ca. Hotspot charged. Run every live slide once with D.
What are you still using pen and paper for?
Hands up for each one. No judgment: paper works. It's just invisible to every digital tool.
[0:02 · 2 min] Read a few out and click the ones that get hands. Anything else: + Add one, type, Enter. Saved for the session log.
The point: "AI and digital tools can only help with what's digital. Everything you just put your hand up for is a Level 1 job." No judgment: paper works, it just doesn't talk to anything.
Where are you today with AI?
Hands up. Everyone in this room is somewhere on this line.
Haven't tried AI yet
Not sure where to start, or whether it's for you.
Tried it a few times
Asked it a question or two. Not part of how you work.
Use it now and then
A post here, an email there. Hit or miss.
Use it every week
It's part of how the business runs.
More than half of Canadian hospitality businesses haven't started yet (CFIB, 2025). If you're a 1, you're in good company.
[0:04 · 2 min] Count hands, click +. It's saved for the post-series report (Log button). Pitch the rest from what you see: mostly 1–2, go slower and keep it simple; mostly 3–4, lean on the brief and the checking.
What eats your week?
Shout them out. Then we'll tackle them in three levels: digital tools, AI, and beyond the chatbot.
[0:06 · 3 min] "What's the job you do every week that you wish you didn't?" Click the stickies as you hear them (saved to the log). Anything not on the wall: click + Add a task, type it, press Enter. It's added as one of the room's picks; × removes it. Up to 8 extra.
Then explain the plan: three levels. Level 1, everyday digital tools for these jobs. Level 2, AI for them, done well. Level 3, beyond the chatbot. Anything not covered, we'll do live in the Q&A at the end.
Everyday digital tools.
No AI yet. The free and low-cost tools that take the jobs off your wall, by task.
[0:09] Level 1, about 10 minutes. A tour, not a training. The full guide with costs is in the take-home kit. Say once: Get Building has no commercial relationship with any tool shown today.
Bookings, schedules and guest messages.
Recommended across the industry. We haven't used these ourselves.
Tour bookings: Checkfront, FareHarbor, Bókun, Peek
Room bookings: Little Hotelier, Cloudbeds, Lodgify
Table bookings: OpenTable, Tock
Staff shifts: 7shifts, Homebase
[0:09 · 4 min] Top: tools we use and stand behind. Say what each is for: Calendar, a shared calendar for staff and a booking page; Google Business Profile, hours, season dates, photos and replies to every review ("the highest-value hour you'll spend"); WhatsApp Business and Messenger, saved replies and an away message. Bottom: be upfront that we haven't used these ourselves; they're what operators across the industry recommend. Ask: "Who takes bookings online? Who's still on the phone and a paper book?" 7shifts and Homebase have free plans. Booking systems mostly charge per booking or monthly. Don't recommend one: point out the families (tours, rooms, tables) and the question to ask any vendor: "Does it sync with Google and the booking sites I already use, and what does each booking cost me?"
OpenTable, honestly: roughly US$39–149 a month plus about $1–1.50 per guest who books through OpenTable's own site, billed in US dollars. Get a written Canadian quote.
Google Business Profile: "Who's checked their hours since the spring?" Seasonal businesses: set the closing date now.
Intercom, Front and Zendesk: only when you've got several people answering messages from several places. Most rooms here aren't there yet, and that's fine.
Content, forms and the back office.
[0:13 · 3 min] Ask for one tool from the room that's working for them: peer recommendations land better than yours. Mailchimp: consent first, that's CASL.
The bottom line is the setup for Level 3: tools that live in Google (or Microsoft) can be connected to AI later. Paper and scattered spreadsheets can't.
A guest feedback form, in three minutes.
- forms.google.com → blank form.
- Three questions: a rating, "what did you love?", "what should we fix?"
- Send the link, or print a QR code for the table or the room.
- Answers land in a spreadsheet, automatically.
Same tool for waivers, dietary needs, order requests and staff availability.
How was your visit? Two minutes, and it helps us a lot.
How would you rate your visit?
What did you love?
What should we fix?
[0:16 · 3 min] Live: forms.google.com, blank form, build the three questions with the room shouting them out. Click Send, show the link and the QR option, then the Responses tab and "Link to Sheets". "That's it. Free, and you'll know what guests think before they post it on Google."
No internet: the mock on the right is what you'd build.
Bridge to Level 2: "Everything so far is a tool you set up once. Now: tools that write with you."
Off-the-shelf AI, done well.
The free AI tools, what they're good and bad at, and the one word that makes them work: context.
[0:19] Level 2, about 33 minutes. Plain language. The live examples are ones Hospitality NL asked for: a marketing draft, a customer response and a job posting, then the four questions to check anything before it goes out. Then AI as IT help and as a marketing advisor, and what's safe to put in. Cut order if late: the advisor, then connectors, then build the Google Form only if time allows.
What is generative AI?
A huge amount of text and data goes in. You ask for something. Something new comes out.
Goes in
Almost everything online: websites, books, articles, pictures.
You ask
In plain English: "Write a post about our fall weekends."
Comes out
Something new: a post, a reply, a checklist, a plan. In seconds.
A search engine, or a database of facts. It writes what sounds right, so it can sound right and be wrong. You check.
ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Meta AI. Free to start. Built into Google, Microsoft, Facebook and your phone.
[0:19 · 2 min] Keep it this simple: "A huge amount of text and data went in. You ask for something. Something new comes out." Point along the three boxes. Avoid: tokens, models, training data, neural networks.
The one consequence that matters today: it writes what sounds right, so it can sound right and be wrong. Hold that thought: we'll catch it doing exactly that.
A well-read new hire who's never been here.
Fast, tireless, a good writer. But it doesn't know your road, your prices or your story. What it's missing is context.
It's also an IT helper who's always available: ask it how to set up any tool, and it walks you through it.
Posts, emails, replies, job ads, checklists. Rough notes into something tidy. Shorter, friendlier, in French.
Local facts, prices, anything with a number. Decisions about people and money. What's safe to share.
[0:21 · 3 min] "A summer student who's read every travel guide, writes beautifully, works for free and never sleeps. But they've never set foot in ." Then land the word: context. "Say it with me. We'll keep coming back to it."
Context is everything.
Full context is the secret to a good prompt, and good AI output. Brief it like a new hire: five lines.
[0:24 · 2 min] Workbook: the five lines. Line 5 matters most: give it the facts so it doesn't invent them. Then the first answer is a draft: reply to it. "Let's see the difference."
No context, then context.
[0:26 · 5 min] RFP: marketing drafts. Fresh chat. Ask the volunteer for a shoulder-season offer and type the bare prompt. Read it out in your best tourism-ad voice, then talk it through: "Would your regulars know that was you?" Let the room name the clichés (nestled, hidden gem, breathtaking, the emoji).
Then add the five lines of context (who we are, the job, who it's for, how it should sound, facts) and ask again. "Same tool. The only difference: context." Then edit one line live for local voice.
No internet: D plays (made up), H highlights the clichés.
A harsh review, answered.
[0:31 · 4 min] RFP: customer responses. No Brand Kit yet, so watch what it does on its own. Use a real public review from the volunteer if they have one, or the recorded one.
What to catch (H):
Fix it live: "Shorter. Signed by [owner]. No refund offer. Say what we changed." Land it: "You own every word you post, even if AI wrote it."
A job ad, and who it leaves out.
[0:35 · 3 min] RFP: job postings. Ask the volunteer what they hire for every spring. Live output may or may not have bias in it: if it's clean, play the recorded one (D, then H).
What to catch:
Four questions before it goes out.
Names, times, dates, prices. It sounds sure even when it's wrong.
No slop. Like the first Facebook post.
Who does it leave out? Like the job ad. Alt text on photos.
And no promises nobody made. Like the review.
[0:38 · 3 min] Right after the three demos, while they're fresh: each question maps to one. Tone: the first post. Relevance: the review that promised a refund. Bias: the job ad. Accuracy: anything with a name, date or price. Air Canada in 30 seconds: in 2024 its chatbot told a grieving customer he could claim a bereavement fare after his trip; the policy said no; Air Canada argued the bot was "a separate legal entity"; the BC tribunal made them pay.
Scams: fake Booking.com "guest complaints" stole hotels' logins in 2025. Go around the link: log in from the app. Call back on a number you know.
Ask AI to help you set up a tool.
[0:41 · 4 min] This is where Level 1 and Level 2 meet: AI as the IT person you never had. Type the prompt, answer its questions with the volunteer's real details, and let it walk you through.
If you can, open Meta Business Suite and follow the first two steps live. Point at the [CHECK]: "Menus change. If what you see doesn't match, tell it what you see. That's 'just ask it'."
AI as your marketing advisor.
[0:45 · 4 min] Callback to the task wall: "Marketing was on a lot of your walls. Let's turn it into a plan." Run it for the volunteer, answering by voice.
Point out that it asks before it suggests, starts free, and offers to walk you through setup. The full prompt is in the take-home kit.
What goes in is about risk you choose.
Green
- Your website, hours, prices, menu
- Public reviews
- Your Brand Kit
Yellow
- Guest emails, lists and bookings
- Staff schedules, sales numbers
- Ask: Canadian or US? Training off? Paid?
Red
- Health information, card numbers, passwords
- Tools from outside Canada and the US, like Chinese AI apps
- New or unknown companies
[0:49 · 3 min] Bridge from the advisor: "Before you hand AI the details of your business, what's safe to put in?" The message: this isn't "never put anything personal in". It's a risk decision, and it's yours to make. Same as choosing a booking system or an email provider: you're already trusting Google, Microsoft or Booking.com with guest data every day.
Yellow, the four questions: 1) Where is the company from? Canadian first if there's a good option (support local, data sovereignty); a big US provider is usually OK. 2) Is training on your data off? 3) Free or paid? Paid business plans commit not to train on your data. 4) Does the job need the personal details at all? Often you can leave the name out and lose nothing.
Quick-fire, room calls it: 1) A guest's complaint email, pasted into ChatGPT with training off, to draft a reply (yellow: reasonable, your call). 2) Your full guest list into a brand-new free AI app you found on Facebook (red: unknown company). 3) A guest's allergy or medical note (red: health information). 4) Your booking-system password "to help set it up" (red, never).
The law, plainly: NL private businesses fall under PIPEDA. You can use service providers, including outside Canada, but you stay accountable for the data, should only use it for the reason guests gave it, and should say in your privacy policy that it may be processed outside Canada. Test of acceptable risk: "Could I explain this to the guest whose information it is?"
Beyond the chatbot.
Save your context once, in a file AI reuses. Then a look at what AI can do when it's connected to your tools.
[0:52] Level 3, about 17 minutes. Open minds, don't overwhelm: one thing to build (the Brand Kit), one thing to know exists (connectors and builders).
Every new chat starts from zero.
Typing the five lines of context every time gets old. So save it once, as a file: an AI Brand Kit.
- Your colours, fonts and logo
- Your voice: words you use and avoid
- Your facts, and Always / Never rules
Attach it to any request, in any AI tool, and the result looks and sounds like you.
It may not be perfect out of the box. Expect a little back and forth to get it right.
[0:52 · 2 min] Callback: "Remember how much better the post got with five lines of context? This is those five lines, plus your look, saved once." Scroll the example on screen: note to AI at the top, colours with codes, fonts, voice, facts, Always / Never.
It's a visual page, so a person can check it at a glance, and all real text, so AI can read it.
Build yours from your website.
[0:54 · 6 min] The centrepiece of Level 3. Fresh chat. Paste this with the volunteer's website. While it builds, tell people with phones: "Try it on your own website now. The prompt is in your take-home kit, QR at the end." No phone: workbook page 2.
Open the file it makes in a browser tab. Ask the volunteer: "Does it look like you?" Don't pick at it: a minute ago it didn't exist. Fix anything wrong by saying so: "Our main colour is darker green. Update the Brand Kit."
Free plans: ChatGPT and Gemini show it in a canvas; Claude shows it as an artifact; all let you download. If the AI can't open websites, upload a screenshot of the home page.
Let it interview you instead.
[1:00 · 1 min] Just show it: "No website? This one interviews you. Tap the microphone and talk: it's the fastest way." It's in the take-home kit. Lots of small operators here run on Facebook alone: "You can also paste in your Facebook About section."
Now it makes things that look like you.
[1:01 · 3 min] In the chat with the volunteer's Brand Kit: attach one of their real photos and ask for a square graphic for the offer from the marketing draft. It comes back in their colours and fonts. "You didn't tell it the colours. The file did."
Real photos only: "AI can help you lay out your photo. It shouldn't invent your place." Alt text: ask for it too.
No internet: the example on the right was made the same way for (made up).
How to get good results from AI.
Four things the people who get the most out of it do every day.
Not sure how to do something? Ask the AI. It knows what it can do and will walk you through it, step by step.
"How would I do this? Walk me through it."
Who it's for, what you're after, what good looks like. Your Brand Kit does most of this for you.
"Here's the situation, here's what I need."
Tap the microphone and ramble. It turns messy talk into something tidy, and talking is the fastest way to give it lots of detail.
Great on a phone, in the truck, after a shift.
The first answer is a draft. Go back and forth. You get better at this by using it, not by reading about it.
"Closer. Now shorter and less formal."
[1:04 · 2 min] Tie each one back to what they just watched. "Just ask it": stuck with a connector or Canva? Ask the AI how. "Context": the word of the day, and now saved in your Brand Kit. "Talk, don't type": tap the mic, it's the fastest way to give it detail. "Practice makes perfect": every demo needed a second pass.
Most people give up the first time it doesn't work, when the AI would have happily told them how.
What's possible next.
You don't need these today. Just know they exist.
Connectors
AI that works inside your tools. Connect Gmail, Calendar and Drive (or Outlook and OneDrive) to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, with your permission.
Builders
Describe it, and it gets built. Lovable turns plain English and your Brand Kit into a website, a booking form or a guest guide. Free plan: a few builds a day.
Automations
Explain it once, done every day: one task, done the same way at the same time, every time. Claude Cowork can read, check and report on a schedule; ChatGPT and Gemini have scheduled tasks too.
[1:06 · 3 min] Callback to Level 1: "Remember: Google tools connect to AI. This is what that means." Connectors: Settings → Connectors (Claude) or Apps (ChatGPT); Gemini connects to Gmail, Drive and Calendar. Start read-only where you can, only turn on what you need.
Automations: the ferry example lands everywhere in NL. Scheduled tasks exist in Claude (Cowork), ChatGPT and Gemini under different names and plans: check the week of.
Lovable: if there's time and the room is keen, show the sample site at demo-files/sample-site.html. Otherwise just the idea. Honest: free plan is a few builds a day, account needed, your own web address needs a paid plan.
Bridge: "Once AI can see your email and files, the green, yellow, red from earlier matters even more. Start read-only."
Your next digital step.
One from any level. Write it on page 4 of your workbook.
Fix your Google listing, or build one Google Form.
Use the five lines of context for one task from your wall.
Build your Brand Kit, and use it for everything after.
Both Brand Kit prompts, every prompt from today, a tools guide with costs, a starter AI policy, checklists and supports near .
[1:09 · 2 min] Two quiet minutes to write. "Tell your neighbour your step." Ask them to tick their level on page 1 again.
Bring us a task from your business.
We'll try it live, and see if it's a job for a digital tool, for AI, or for you.
Does it repeat?
Weekly or more.
Is it words or numbers?
Not hands-on work.
Would you catch a mistake?
Then it's a good one to start with.
[1:11 · up to 19 min] The buffer. Take a real task from the room (start with anything added to the wall) and run it live. Note every question for the post-series summary.
Ideas if the room is quiet: the training manual and guestbook prompts in the take-home kit (both made by letting AI interview the owner). Run one live.
If the room is booked to 3:30, keep going: this is the open half-hour.
Less admin. More guests.
Thank you, . Questions after today: start a conversation.
Tourism Connect NL · Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador
Thank the volunteer by name. Leave this up while people pack. Then Log in the bottom bar exports readiness and the wall for this stop; add the questions while they're fresh.