The hospitality industry has been devastatingly impacted by the COVID-19. While the pandemic accelerated the demand for contactless services, this has triggered APAC’s hospitality sector to embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to comply with the new normal.

Hong Kong hotels operator Nina Hospitality (formerly L’hotel Group) has introduced AI robots Genie, Gena, and Genius at Nina Hotel Island South in Hong Kong to serve food and drinks to guests who are staying at the hotel for quarantine. These robots from a Hong Kong-based business Rice Robotics are less than 80cm tall with navigation. Its mission is to provide a solution for hotels delivering food and necessities to the guest rooms without face-to-face contact. Items such as food and beverage will be stored at the robot’s compartment and guests would be able to access them with an assigned pin password. The robots serve 130 to 150 meals every day to the quarantined guests and the others who are staying at the Nina Hotel Island South, which has been effectively protecting the hotel’s staff from the risk of contaminating coronavirus and increasing staff’s efficiency.

Alibaba’s futuristic hotel FlyZoo, located in Hangzhou, China, is staffed by robots and everything is powered by AI. It was opened in 2018 as a test bed for the technology, with an idea of revolutionising the future hotel industry to operate hotels with AI and high-tech. The hotel creates a seamless experience for guests. It begins with the FlyZoo mobile app for travellers to manage their bookings and they can access the room with facial recognition cameras. No key cards and no paperwork – that’s how convenient the hotel’s services are. The hotel is also staffed with robots who are responsible for delivering daily necessities and food, which is said to be more cost-efficient and less mistakes made when compared to human staff. In the future, Alibaba aims to expand and apply this technology advancement in global hospitality chains, such as Marriott International.

It is noticeable that there is a rising trend for traditional industries which require a lot of manpower like hospitality have gradually evolved with digital transformation. In the face of pandemic, theWorld Health Organisationalso issued a list of operational considerations forCOVID-19 in the hospitality and tourism sector, including handling check-ins for ill hotel residents in the face of social distancing restrictions. It seems that AI robots as an all-rounded assistance to perform different functions and tasks in the hotel are going to be more essential, or even with a possibility to replace human staff. Having said that, experts of the hospitality industry in Asia agree that the innovation of high-tech hotels is still at a beginning stage. To develop the technology in the hospitality industry, it would need to acquire more sophisticated knowledge and evaluate elements including the hospitality operation and management, customer experiences, human resources etc. in the future.

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