Hospitality and robotic, a future duo

In the digital tourism era, the hospitality is a sector that will introduce the newest solutions in terms of digitalisation and robotisation of the services. Innovation keeps on developing, aiming to provide the best stay to the customers. Several aspects of life inside the hotels will be influenced by this trend. In fact, since the booking process, the customer is able to personalise many in-room services. Tourists’ preferences and consumer habits are now registered, aiming to make their next stay as pleasant as possible. Also for this reason, new payments methods are being introduced to simplify and enhance the customer experience.

On the other hand, there are some aspects of this digitalisation process that are stealing skills and characteristics that are typical of human resources. Also the European Parliament faced this issue proposing the so-called “European Civil Law Rules in Robotics”, which aim to adjust the relationship between tech and robotic innovations, and enterprises. The Parliament evaluates that millions of job roles are in danger due to Artificial Intelligence that is projected to automatise processes. According to the World Economic Forum, 5 million jobs are risking from now to 2020.

As reported by Hosteltur, beyond hospitality, there are many sectors of the Travel & Tourism industry that could be affected by the introduction of robotics in services to tourists.

Moreover, human resources should become more skilled and specialised in order to supervise technologies that will automatise the most standard practices. An example is given by AURA, a robot that serves food and beverages and which is specifically designed for hotel room services.

In Tokyo, Henn na Hotel Maihama Tokyo Bay is completely run by robots and, at the reception, customers are welcomed by a dinosaur. The hotel concept is linked to Disneyland theme park, and aims to provide a new experience to customers.

An in-depth analysis should be made on tourism products and on providing experiential tourism, which will be more and more customisable also thanks to technologies, leading the way to new typologies of design, marketing and sales, as is partially happening with chatbots.

At Twissen we observed that the pressing development pace of innovation is influencing the Travel & Tourism industry. Even if the relationships between tourism and robotic is not completely clear, new business opportunities can be created when it comes to personalising travel experiences and services, which is slowly introducing the presence of robots.

Twissen