AI, virtual reality make inroads in tourism sector
Hotel room automatically adjusts to tastes of each guest
MADRID, Jan 21, (Agencies): A hotel room automatically adjusting to the tastes of each guest, virtual reality headsets as brochures: the tourism sector is starting to embrace new technologies, hoping to benefit from lucrative personal data.
In a prototype of the hotel of the future on display at Madrid’s Fitur tourism fair, receptionists have disappeared and customers are checked-in via a mirror equipped with facial recognition.
Once the client is identified, the room adapts itself automatically to all demands made at reservation: temperature, lighting, Picasso or Van Gogh in the digital frames hanging on the walls.
“Technology will allow us to know what the client needs before he even knows he wants it,” says Alvaro Carrillo de Albornoz, head of Spain’s Hotel Technology Institute, which promotes innovation in the sector.
Some hotels already offer such experiences at a more basic level.
But the room prototype put on show by French technology consultancy Altran, aimed at luxury hotels, has incorporated cutting-edge speech recognition technology, allowing for instance a guest to order a pizza in 40 languages.
“Even the lock is intelligent — it opens and closes via the WhatsApp application on the client’s phone,” says Carlos Mendez, head of innovation at Altran.
The mattress is equipped with sensors and records the movements of those sleeping, which could prompt hotel staff to offer them a coffee when they wake up.
Generally speaking, hotels are hoping to use artificial intelligence (AI) to get better knowledge of their clients via personal data provided on reservation or “beacon” technology used once the client is in the hotel or resort.
Restricted
Restricted in some countries, the latter involves placing a beacon in the hotel that will detect customers’ smartphones, meaning they will know how much time they spend in their rooms, for instance, or at what time they go to the pool.
Fed with this data, AI algorithms will get to work, determining what the clients’ habits are to lure them back again by offering a tailor-made experience, or sell them additional products.
If the algorithm “knows that when you come to the hotel with your wife, you don’t eat at the restaurant but order room service, it will propose a special room menu with a bottle of champagne,” says Carrillo.
“But if you come with your entire family, it will propose a reduction on kids’ menus.”
For Rodrigo Martinez, head of consultancy Hotel Servicers, these technological tools could also help improve hotels’ productivity.
“All purchases can be made automatic,” he says.
“For instance, if a huge amount of Brits are coming, the system will know that it has to order more bacon.”
Manufacturers of virtual reality (VR) headsets are also jumping onto the bandwagon. At various Fitur stands, visitors are able to immerse themselves in the streets of Marrakech or amble along a portion of the Santiago de Compostela pilgrims’ trail.
“We’re in a completely pioneering phase,” says Marcial Correal, head of the Spanish association for virtual travel agencies, who is promoting this tool to tourism professionals as the brochure of the future, without too much success so far.
“Professionals say ‘how amazing’ but they don’t buy it. It’s not in their sensitivity,” says Siham Fettouhi, head of e-marketing at the office. “Virtual reality can’t replace the taste of local cuisine or the smell of the ocean. But it makes you want to explore more.”
Also: SAN FRANCISCO:
Red lanterns sway in the wind. Streetlamps from the 1930s cast a yellow-green glare onto centuryold buildings. Neon glows from a pair of dive bars. Figures are silhouetted waiting outside a restaurant, and a lone woman makes dragon beard candy in a tiny storefront window. All are nighttime scenes along Grant Avenue in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
The avenue, which runs north and south, is one of the oldest streets in the city. In the late 1800s, it became home to Chinese immigrants who were fleeing unrest at home, seeking opportunity here or following the Gold Rush. Many of the neighborhood’s buildings today can be traced to reconstruction efforts after the 1906 earthquake.
Grant Avenue is a bustling street during the day, often filled with tourists in search of souvenirs or locals shopping for food. But at night the street is quiet, allowing for leisurely strolling and new discoveries. Many stores close early with only a few bars, restaurants and bakeries open late. It’s an interesting place to stroll this time of year and reflect on the area’s culture and history as Lunar New Year approaches, Feb 16, launching the year of the dog.
At the intersection of Grant Avenue and Washington Street are a pair of dive bars located 10 steps away from each other. One is the Li Po Lounge, named for a poet in China’s Tang Dynasty, dating to the 1930s. Inside its red lacquered doors sits a golden Buddha statue behind a wraparound bar. The Li Po is known for its $9 Chinese Mai Tai made with three … , pineapple juice and a “Chinese Liqueur” served in a plastic hurricane glass and packing a wallop to the unsuspecting. Nearby is the Buddha Lounge, a dinky, quirky dive known for betting on your drink in a game of Liar’s Dice between you and the bartender.
Where Grant Avenue meets Broadway Street near the North Beach district is China Live, which opened last year and serves as an anchor point for the revitalization effort within the greater Chinatown neighborhood. The four-story building is a culinary and cultural landmark. It includes multiple restaurants, bars, a retail market and event space. China Live was founded by George Chen and his wife Cindy Wong-Chen. George Chen is known as the creator of two well-known restaurants elsewhere in the city, Betelnut and Shanghai 1930.
The heart of China Live’s ground floor is the Market Restaurant and Bar Central, a 120-seat restaurant with eight stations serving delectable cuisine ranging from dumplings and dim sum to Chinese charcuterie and barbeque. Upstairs is Eight Tables, a fine dining restaurant that has an eight-course, constantly evolving Chinese tasting menu. The restaurant is accessible via a secluded back alley entrance with a rickshaw available on request to take you from the main street.
With Old Shanghai as an inspiration, Cold Drinks at China Live was recently named as one of the city’s best new bars. The 40-seat lush and mysterious bar features Scotch-centric cocktails and overlooks parts of the skyline and edge of Chinatown. For the lunar new year, Cold Drinks will be releasing 12 drinks in February inspired by the Chinese Zodiac animals, including this year’s beverage, named, what else, The Lucky Dog.