Imagine arriving at your hotel and being greeted by a well-mannered robot. Or using face-recognition to check into your room. Or flat screens embedded in mirrors. Or shower walls with an instant glass-frosting option.
No, this is not Star Wars. It’s the constantly evolving world of travel and tourism. Indeed, a lot is changing in the travel industry.
The past 18 months, especially, have witnessed an evolution in the hospitality sector, in which resorts and hotels are re-thinking the best ways to interact with guests and provide even greater perks and services. And leading the way is innovation—breakthroughs in digital performance, remote capabilities, and integrated technologies are revolutionizing the customer experience, particularly in the luxury market.
“Although some of the technological innovations in the hotel industry seem fairly sudden and futuristic, many are not. Many of the evolutionary advances and enhancements, as it pertains to technology, will be incremental and barely perceptible. They will be improvements or upgrades on existing features and amenities that you may not notice—or hardly realize they haven’t always been here.”
(Peter Dayot, Founder & Principal, The Publicus Community)
The following five hotels represent just a handful of hospitality experiences, both home and abroad, that are riding the ever-cresting wave of technology into the future.
Marriott City Center
Charlotte, NC
As an older hotel originally built in the 1980s, Marriott City Center has been thoroughly re-invented and re-imagined as a real-time hub for innovation. They are currently testing a number of technologically and digitally advanced features and programs with the hope of rolling these out at other Marriott locations. Some of the fresh-baked features include: virtual fitness classes on large “movie-theater” screens, a lobby kiosk that measures your mood (yes, your mood!), and wellness rooms that have purified air systems, and sparkling water on tap.
Pengheng Space Capsules Hotel
Shenzhen, China
Yes, you read that right: Space Capsules Hotel. And the most obvious innovation here is the fact that your service experience is overseen by robots. In fact, there is very little human interaction. Instead, your front desk clerk and door man and food and beverage staff are all automatons. The space-age theme, as the name implies, is crystalized further in the actual guest rooms, which are ultra-mod and uber-clean space capsules. Guests can’t seem to get enough as the hotel stays booked. The only mild risk is waking up thinking you are in a sci-fi movie.
Yotel NYC
New York City
This is upscale innovation at its refined, simplistic best. They even have robots too—actually one robot, endearingly referred to as YOBOT, a personable, amenable chap that is technologically conceived to store all customer luggage in locked bins. Offering hundreds of quaint little “petite Cabin rooms” (this is New York after all), the Yotel features free, super-fast WIFI, digital check-in kiosks, and gel memory foam SmartBeds, that allow guests to sit up or lie down at the push of a button. The Yotel is wonderfully efficient and streamlined, with the motto: “Everything you need, and nothing you don’t.”
Hotel Zetta
San Francisco, CA
Located in the hip and fashionable south of market neighborhood (SoMa), Hotel Zetta is a technological marvel—which is appropriate given its proximity to Silicon Valley. The tech-forward guest experience here is demonstrated through a variety of features: Amazon Alexa voice assistants in all guest rooms, a virtual reality booth located in the lobby (with underwater and adventure games), lightning-fast WIFI, a variety of latest-greatest streaming platforms, even old-school Atari Pong that is hooked up to Bluetooth speakers for custom soundtracks.
Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland
Songjiang District
So this is rather interesting, the first hotel to be built into a rock quarry, with 18 floors underground and two floors under water. (Talk about technological advancement!) Not for claustrophobic types perhaps, but an absolute novel experience for virtually anyone else. It is billed as the “world’s first underwater hotel,” and it aims to please. The more adventurous guests can kayak around the quarry or even rock climb a cliff face up to nearly 90 meters. Architecturally, it has been sustainably designed, with each room adhering to a feng shui design. Technologically, rooms are connected with an “Alexa-like” Baidu digital assistant to fulfill wishes upon command.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO WELLNESS
Whether traveling for business or leisure, there is one constant in the ever-changing Luxury Hospitality Market: technology is the new comfort. Or rather, technology is now the key means to providing more comfort and convenience and enjoyment than ever before. You’ll see it in big, dramatic new innovations like talking robots, as well as in subtle, hardly perceptible innovations that personalize and streamline your experience. The goal, as always, is customer satisfaction. And the notion that travel will always be fun, exciting, and satisfying. Each of these five hotels demonstrates that in their own unique way. The challenge and opportunity for customers is to identify the type of innovations and services you prefer and seek out the hoteliers that best meet that experience. You might even make some new discoveries along the way.
