Earlier this month in Miami, procurement automation platform Reeco, in partnership with CGU, held an event called “Future Hospitality: Where Smart Development Meets Intelligent Operations,” where industry leaders discussed current and future technology trends.
Unsurprisingly, the first topic discussed was the impact artificial intelligence (AI) is having on the hospitality industry.
“AI is going to change our business from here on in,” said Todd Felsen, president/CEO, OTH Hotels Resorts. “It is going to replace some crucial positions in our business through the technology that it offers from a financial basis, but also from a human relations standpoint. However, it will never, ever replace the human touch in our business. Our business is meant for the human touch, and you have to be able to communicate with the customers and have that human touch to create unscripted hospitality moments.”
“I don’t think AI is going to replace everyone’s jobs like everyone’s been worried about, but it can automate the backend,” said Jason Doebrich, VP, technology, Virgin Hotels and chapter VP, HFTP‘s South Florida Chapter. “However, if you don’t have that foundation of your data already organized and architected properly, then the AI is never going to really be able to learn or to be able to aggregate all that information and serve it up properly.”
Nick Murray, VP, food and beverage, Sage Hospitality Group, believes that AI won’t find its way into the food and beverage area of the hotel because it’s so driven by the human side of hospitality, adding, “AI will only tell you where you’ve been. It’s not gonna be able to dictate what your guest wants. AI would be great to leverage the data, but it can’t make the decision for us.”
“But it can free up people to not be behind that desk checking in credit cards,” replied Doebrich.
Felsen pointed out that “younger customers don’t want to talk to anybody. The baby boomers want to talk to somebody on the phone if they have issues with reservations, but the younger generation wants technology. They want speed of process, and you have to give them that experience. It’s OK to speed up the process, as long as we’re more efficient it.”
James Hansen, VP, business development, Reeco, a former hotelier, noted that hoteliers don’t like to be disrupted.
“We’ve been set in our ways for a very long time,” he said. “There’s an old adage that if it’s not broken, why bother trying to fix it. There have been many things that have worked for a long time in the hotel space. Unfortunately for hotels, the world continues to innovate, so as an industry, we’ve realized we’d better start innovating ourselves.”
He added, “When you talk about AI and the way it’s changing and disrupting our space, we have to do a lot of educating because we have been very resistant to change. So, my team and I have been doing a lot of educating because this disruption scares people. But when we explain how our solution is going to help them save time and money, they start to understand that this is a great t change that’s happening in our space, and it’s been long needed.”
The panelists were then asked about recent technological innovations that will change the hospitality industry in five years.
“In five years, I believe there’s going to be one source—and it could be an operating system or a platform—where all of your preferences—your Hilton Honors profile, your Delta Sky Miles preferences, your seat suggestions, what you like to eat and order through Uber Eats and Instacart and all these sources of data—lead to one solution,” said Hansen. “So when I’m in the long car ride to the office in Brickell, I can think about other things because that source has already thoughtfully curated my entire experience in Brickell, from the hotel to where I’m going to eat that night, to having my Starbucks Nitro in the can that I like already in the refrigerator. I know that’s wild, but five years is a long time in technology, and I think we’re already almost there.”
Felsen replied, “AI is going to do all of this for us, not just from a travel standpoint, but your prescriptions that you may take, the food that you buy. It’s going to start remembering everything you do and how you act as an individual. It’s even going to remember your children’s homework. This is crazy stuff that’s happening out there, and these experiences are only going to continue to grow further beyond what we basically think today.”
Murray said he’s in the process of developing and building a couple of hotels where F&B space is a premium.
“I have all these beautiful restaurants and bars and bars going in them, but I have no space to put anything,” he said. “Where am I going to put all the food I need to buy to sell to guests? So, what I think about is kind of like in Amazon for hospitality, and food and beverage specifically. Some system or a process where I don’t need the X amount of sq. ft. of storage space for refrigeration, coolers and dry storage, and having a system that says ‘I’m going to do 500 covers in this restaurant tomorrow. I need 500 covers with the food”—and then it just shows up, instead of having to wait six days for another truck to come through.”
