Small rooms and robots in new hotels
City hotels small rooms, staffed by robots are already a reality, John Brennan, chairman of Amaris Hospitality told senior hospitality managers at the inaugural ‘Firm Talk’
organised and hosted by hospitality industry recruitment consultants The Firm.
He is pictured with Micheline Corr, director of The Firm.
A Japanese company, he said, opened its first hotel staffed by robots in 2015 and plans to open 100 more.
‘The trend appears to be towards smaller rooms, less human service and comfortable lobbies at the lower end of the hotel market and increasingly around amazing locations, style and, critically, a sense of destination and authentic personalised service experience at the luxury end’, he said
Hotel companies are extending their operations into hostels, home-stay, extended stay and micro hotels in response to a need to intensify activity on expensive land, to reduce operating costs and by a focus on a life-style product for younger travellers.
‘The Digital World is also impacting hospitality with services such as mobile marketing, ‘smart’ appliances, personalisation via Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, Virtual Reality, Beacon Technology, which sends messages to smart phones in specific locations, Big Data Predictive Analytics, Facial Recognition to speed up check-in and Driverless Technology in resorts.
The EPA released a research report last week – “Reducing Commercial Food Waste in Ireland”along with a number of Fact Sheets and an updated “Less Food Waste – More Profit”
