Technology

In my opinion AI and robotics will disrupt the industry's jobs on a few different levels. The guest transactional experience will be the first to be affected and the first jobs to go will be in customer service, especially call centers, reservations, operators, etc.

A couple of key considerations impact the outcome and this will come down to a per business environment. These are - What is your philosophy toward the delivery of hospitality, which is a human to human condition? What 'level' of product are you offering to the market - do you currently deliver hospitality (service and care) with your existing product?

Technologies like AI, robotics, automation, mobility and IoT are called upon to solve a number of issues in hospitality: Solve dull, repetitive, dirty or dangerous jobs. Solve high turnover of trained employees (20%-30%) Solve problems like poor discipline, lack of motivation, etc.

... Back office. In all its flavours, from finance reconciliation (via Predictive AI/ML based RPA tools), guest feedback analysis (via Gen AI tools), Revenue Management (via Predictive AI, which has been in place for over a decade already), and marketing SEO/PR copywriting (via Gen AI text and graphic tools), HR (eg tools to auto read/select/deselect CVs based on Gen AI tools), and some staff productivity (eg via Copilot for email filtering).

I believe that the single biggest impact AI will have on hospitality is in REVENUE MANAGEMENT. Today's hospitality revenue managers navigate an increasingly complex environment shaped by shifting consumer preferences and remaining competitive.

Transitioning hospitality from Mobile-first to AI-first will be the greatest transformation of our industry since the advent of the Internet. Within this AI transformation, I believe agentic AI will have the single biggest impact on our industry.

The first observation is that things are developing very quickly. As compared to Moore's law, the pace of next generation AI capablities are developing at a speed that is hard to fathom based upon our species past technical endeavours.

AI Agents are a fundamentally different way to interact with data and knowledge. We are now in the phase of replicating the current status with agents (for example, to build a travel itinerary), like the first TV programs were radio shows with a camera, but pretty quickly we'll evolve to find new ways of doing the same things.

No, most hoteliers are not ready for the new era of personal AI agents. Hotels have historically been cautious about new technology, and for good reason. But AI-driven hotel discovery isn't necessarily about tech adoption. It's about storytelling.AI relies on natural language processing, so hotels should publish blog posts and substantive content that answer traveler queries on their websites.

By 2025, over 85 million existing jobs will be lost due to the seismic shift toward AI, robotization and automation, according to WEF, McKinsey and OECD. Last year labor costs exceeded 1/3 of hotel revenue and AI, robotization and automation are becoming increasingly appealing to hotel owners and operators.

Could we see digital workers comprising half of the hospitality workforce, as they already do at Amazon in this decade? Yes. This model aligns perfectly with the limited and select service layer of the industry. Under such a model I would call it the 'no service' or dormitory management layer.

To thrive in an increasingly digital world, hotels must embrace AI to deliver the highly personalized experiences modern guests demand. However, as with any transformation, it's critical not to put the cart before the horse. Before investing in advanced AI-driven solutions, hotels should first establish a strong, sustainable data foundation—a Central Guest Profile (CGP) that aggregates guest information across all touchpoints of the customer journey.

The big OTAs like Expedia/Bing and Booking are already using gen AI tools to expand searches to trip itineraries, eg Bing's Copilot. It's still early days as the Bing tool clearly just does keyword searches and then uses OpenAI to write a (good) narrative based on the results.

While a ton can be said about the various ways that AI will affect travel, one specific behavioral adjustment we will see is the resurgence of voice-based interactions. After all, what's easier to do: talk or type? For most, we can speak a lot faster than we can plug information into a computer or phone.

I generally agree with this forecast, Simone. My long held view is that the more technology becomes 'conversational', to use the current en vogue term, or voice enabled, which has long been my bent, the more friendly and accessible technology becomes.

Robotic cleaning of lobby and corridor areas make sense, plus robotic grass cutting. Less relevant for room cleaning given the corners and obstacles, although Neom is exploring this. Car parking via flat bots that rise up and lift the car off its wheels also work well and can optimise space in limited car parks.

This year labor costs in hospitality consume 1/3 of hotel revenue (STR) and robotization and automation are becoming increasingly appealing to hotel owners and operators. Ex. Robots like Rosie by Tailos, thousands of which have already been deployed at various hotels, clean guest rooms 20 percent faster and public areas up to 80 percent faster than human housekeepers.

Of course! We've seen robots in progressive hotels and resorts for years. You're right that cleaning and innovative food delivery are the easier pickings. But we should discuss that bright red line that starts and ends with the front desk.

My take remains the same: there is no such thing as "total" revenue management. Revenue is revenue, period. When you buy a pair of Nikes at a sneaker shop, they come with shoelaces; shoelaces are not considered "ancillary" revenue.

The evolution of the Revenue Management discipline in our industry, since its inception 40 years ago, has been driven by large franchised organizations and management companies that care about RevPAR because that's how their business models are structured and that is how they are incentivized.

One of the big megatrends for hospitality is the increasing value of mixed-use branded properties where every revenue stream (rooms, ancillaries and stay-independent) acts to synergize each other. All the greatest hoteliers have tacitly appreciated this quality, especially in luxury, but they haven’t been able quantify the relationships between spending habits within different verticals because of the disconnected nature of software databases.

The question needs to be reworded to ask how Generative AI (Gen-AI) will transform the industry, as Predictive AI (P-AI) has been core to revenue management / pricing systems for decades. P-AI has also been fundamental to RPA - Robotic Process Automation - which links disparate systems that may not have APIs.

We will in a world of abundance: destinations, flight routes, accomodations, restaurants. This has created a paradox of choice wherein the discovery process of deciding where to go (for leisure), what hotel to book and where to dine is almost a chore in that it can take up a ton of time.

Let’s start with the second question. First, you need an AI strategy, and an AI strategy holds or falls apart with your data strategy. To use AI, you need to work with good, clean data. For example, suppose your systems are littered with duplicate profiles.