Hotel & Tourism SMARTreport #40

In The Field
with David Esseryk
Hotel & Tourism
SMARTreport #40
2018 Autumn Edition 43
THE "INSIDE LINE" ON WHAT'S HOT IN HOSPITALITY TECHNOLOGIES
PART 23
HOSPITALITY AND A.I.
CLOSE-UP ON
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
– PART II
In this edition of his regular report, David
Esseryk takes another close look at how
Artificial Intelligence is impacting the
industry, and what we can expect to see in
the future.
AUTOMATION AND MACHINE
LEARNING FOR EMERGING
HOTELS
Much of the hopeful promises made for ​
Artificial Intelligence in the hospitality
industry​are intended for established
brands. Small, less celebrated hotels
receive less attention even though they
form a big enough segment to reap
the best out of AI offerings. Since
large hotels can hire more
competent staff to work
on a myriad of tasks,
smaller brands with
a limited budget
and members
can’t reach
the goals of
revenue growth and
business intelligence
management, eventually
settling for weak solutions and
average profit margins.
THE DOMINANT UBIQUITY OF
DIGITAL VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS
The rise of digital concierge and virtual
assistants can be attributed to evolving
travellers, vacationers and business
guests who desire exemplary customer
experience. Hence, to enable digital
experiences with hotels, companies rely on ​
Natural Language Processing​of famous AI
leaders such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa
and Microsoft’s Cortana. To augment the
experience furthermore, we will see AR
purge the linguistic barriers by enabling
English speaking employees to converse
effortlessly with hotel guests from any part
of the world using AR headsets for realtime
translation.
AR is also becoming as integral as AI.
UK’s largest hotel chain Premier Inn has
outfitted each guest room of their Hub
Hotel with an interactive wall map that
contains local spots of the surrounding
neighbourhood. To view interesting local
sites, the facility allows travellers to point
their smartphones at the map.
When it comes to serving customers with
AI-powered virtual assistants, ​Edwardian
Hotels London​leads the chart. The
hotel in May 2015 introduced the
GUESTS
WILL
ENJOY HYPER-
PERSONALISATION IN
THE FORM OF REAL-TIME
NOTIFICATIONS THROUGH
CHATBOTS FROM DINNER
SPECIALS, CASINO FACILITIES
first ever AI-based chatbots with
which guests can interact via
text using a smartphone
to order room service
and request various
recommendations
for spa,
restaurant,
hotel specials and
other local attractions.
TO EVEN BABYSITTING
SERVICES FOR THE
FAMILY PERSONALISATION
ON A LARGER SCALE
Incorporating Artificial Intelligence
in hotels is stipulated to transform room
services completely by 2025 through
the process of creating personalised
experiences that will incorporate individual
preferences. Hotels will integrate ​chatbots
and AI​as a useful tool to acquire and
retain various demographics. McKinsey​
claims in their research that companies
are effectively personalizing their services
can increase revenue by 10% to 15% and
diminish service cost by 15% to 20%.
Over time, with broad adoption of Artificial
Intelligence in hotels, we will see guests
will enjoy hyper-personalisation in the form
of real-time notifications through chatbots
from dinner specials, casino facilities to
even babysitting services for the family.
SEE YOU AGAIN IN THE NEXT EDITION