Artificial Intelligence (AI) could increase hotel revenues by over 10 percent and reduce costs by more than 15 percent – with hotel operators expecting technology such as voice and facial recognition, virtual reality and biometrics to be mainstream by 2025.
Recent reports estimate that almost 73 percent of manual activities in the hospitality industry have the technical potential for automation, with many global hotel operators including Marriott, Hilton, and Accor already investing in automating elements of their human resources.
While automation is forecast to replace a large number of jobs, between 39 and 73 million in the US alone, according to a study by McKinsey Global Institute, the report also states that innovative technology will not be a purely negative disrupter.
Looking to the future, the use of robots within the hospitality industry is becoming more commonplace with industry experts predicting the global sale of guest relation robots to reach 66,000 units by 2020.
