Familiarity and direct consumer exposure to reasonably capable AI (aka narrow AI) were established in the past decade with the introduction of technology and devices such as intelligent personal voice assistants, for example, Apple’s Siri, Amazon Echo’s Alexa and Google Home or earlier PC based digital speech recognition technology. Until recently in hotels, AI has been limited to the back of house activities, built into functions such as marketing and revenue management. However, as advancements in technology provide for accessible, smarter and practical AI tools, the use and influence of AI are set to grow considerably in the hospitality industry.
The primary aim of AI in hospitality at the front end is to enhance client experiences by anticipating guest needs, while at the back end optimising processes and maximising profits. By the nature of a hotels reservation and registration processes, loyalty programs and the many touch points during a guest stay, hotels have access to an almost overwhelming volume of unstructured data regarding personal guest information and their patterns, preferences and habits. Added to this data are external sources such as review sites and social media. AI provides a tool to leverage data; sorting, analysing and exploiting the data to gain a market advantage and generate loyalty. AI tools facilitate targeted and customised marketing, early customer engagement and authentic relationship via instant, seamless and hyper-personalised services that paradoxically deliver a better human experience.
Chatbot
Since 2016 when Facebook Messenger opened their platform to chatbots, they have rapidly become the centre of automated customer services, now providing instantaneous around the clock support on social media messaging apps such as WhatsApp, WeChat or Viber, and can be applied to SMS, reservation and hotel websites. Natural Language Processing (NLP), the AI technology behind chatbots, supports predefined responses and user flows, determined by the hotel, for a vast array of inquiries. Smart prompts help lead the client to satisfactory and enhanced outcomes, or if necessary, seamlessly to the appropriate human agent. Far advanced from the much-maligned multiple choice automated attendant, intuitive chatbots provide value-added communication and are the norm for millennial travellers. Chatbots raise guest experiences and provide a tool to stay connected with the guests from the pre-booking stage to post-departure, and can undertake dialogue in just about any language.
While the reservation process is a logical start for chatbots, in-house, they are suitable for concierge tasks, room service or housekeeping orders, hotel promotion and e-commerce. In the nearest future, the vast majority of guest communication with call centres and hotels will be via chatbot. Diligently tailored chatbots can provide hyper-personalised recommendations to guests based on their behaviour and preferences, build loyalty and reduce dependency on OTAs, open up new markets by removing language barriers, improve reservation conversion rates, and improve sales with intelligent and informed products and timing.
Voice Assistants
Voice assistants engineered for specific hotels or brands or off the shelf products such as Alexa for Hospitality provide guests with a wide range of functions depending on how they are programmed and connected to room and hotel systems. Features may include the control of in-room devices such as adjusting the temperature, lighting, curtains or TV, playing personalised music, playlists or radio, giving weather or travel updates, setting the alarm clock, ordering room service or housekeeping amenities, contacting reception or checking out.
Bringing a listening device into the personal environment of a hotel bedroom naturally raises privacy and security issues, and therefore guests need to be aware of the presence of the voice assistants and be able to turn them off or remove them from the room altogether. Any data captured on the devices must be carefully handled and removed by the hotel or provider, in accordance with local privacy laws and international data protection regulations.
Revenue Management
The optimisation of hotel product availability and price is an application that requires the collection of significant amounts of data and further analysis to predict accurately continually changing consumer behaviour and market trends. Revenue management, therefore, is an ideal application of AI machine learning and provides a critical tool that has become a central USP for hotel operators and third-party vendors. For the application of critical judgement, the human element will most likely remain central to revenue management, however, as machine learning and augmented analytics replace template models, the quality of output recommendations is enhanced, and the revenue management team are more efficiently and productively employed.
Social Media Listening
Today the success of a hotel or brand is built on its online reputation, and the rate of social media posts is growing at a scale which cannot be effectively monitored and countered within a hotel or organisation by social intelligence specialists without advanced technology. AI social media listening facilitates real-time identification and response to social media posting, enhancing guest satisfaction, notably when posts highlighting praise or issues made by in-house guests get addressed immediately or during their stay. AI tools can also provide information on competitive hotels, comparisons on voice volumes, analyse sentiment and identify trending themes.
Robotics
Despite the labour intensity and potential efficiencies from automation due to the complexities of tasks and guest interaction involved in hotel jobs so far to date, robots have had only a minimal practical impact on the hospitality business. Most implemented robotic features have been public relation attractions or pilot schemes with varying degrees of success. In 2011 the Yotel Times Square New York introduced their Yobot a customised ABB industrial robot that stores guest luggage into 150 lockers behind a glass screen in the lobby, a popular Instagram backdrop. In March 2016 Hilton together with IBM Watson introduced their concierge robot Connie into the Hilton McLean, Virginia (a Hilton innovation hub) that uses cognitive computing speech/text and dialogue technology, to enable it to greet guests and answer questions about hotel and external services. In 2015 the Henn-na Hotel Nagasaki, Japan was publicised as the first hotel globally to attempt almost entirely to automate (targeting 90% employee reduction). The hotel included robot concierge, luggage storage, porter robots, auto vacuuming and gardening, vending, as well as face recognition and voice assistants. However, in January 2019 it was reported that over half of the robots were removed due to customer issues and maintenance costs.
Machine Translation
Technical improvements in machine learning directly enhance machine translation, eventually, translations services will be so advanced most travellers will feel confident travelling to any destination without any communication barriers. Machine translation will support the growth of hospitality and travel organisations by offering them a low-cost tool for better communication with clients. Google, Microsoft, Yandex, IBM Watson and Amazon translation technologies are advancing such that when travellers can translate anything, anywhere, it will change how the world travels.
Contemporary Applied AI in Hospitality
Alibaba Flyzoo Hotel, Hangzhou: The 290-room hotel was launched in October 2018, built by Alibaba’s online travel platform, Fliggy, and other Alibaba Group business units, including Alibaba A.I. Labs and Alibaba Cloud recognition. The Flyzoo mobile app offers guests a 3D walkthrough plan of the hotel and choice of floor and room view. On arrival, guests have the option to utilise face recognition technology that provides for automated lifts, door entry, and outlet personalisation and billing throughout the property. Tmall Genie in-room voice assistants present options for automated room service, room customisation and retail ordering and delivery. Robots are utilised to dispense room service and amenities to rooms and meals and beverages in the restaurants. The concept has been stated to provide a potential 50% labour reduction and to free up hotel employees for quality interaction with guests.
Marriott Facial Recognition: In July 2018, Alibaba Group and Marriott International announced a facial recognition check-in pilot with Fliggy, Alibaba’s travel service platform. The pilot starts with two properties, the Hangzhou Marriott Hotel Qianjiangand Sanya Marriott Hotel Dadonghai Bay, with the goal of global rollout across Marriott hotels in the future. The technology completes check-in in less than a minute, guests scan their IDs, take a photo and input contact details on a self-help machine, the intelligent device will dispense room key cards after identities and booking information are verified. With the added technology, hotel associates can work more efficiently, delivering personalised service to guests.
InterContinental AI Smart Rooms: In July 2018, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts announced a collaboration with Baidu on the DuerOS Platform supported by cloud service, that integrates AI technology with hotel operations. Initially rolled out in China the Smart Rooms fully embrace voice control technology to deliver a natural human-computer interactive experience allowing guests to switch settings between work and leisure modes, and enjoy a convenient and seamless in-room experience. The solution fine-tunes the backstage management system, including customising information and resetting devices, easing management tasks.