The future tech set to transform guest experiences
The accommodation industry has been experiencing a technological revolution that is reshaping what guests expect when they walk through your doors.
With many of today's travellers already arriving with smartphones that control their homes, cars that park themselves and anticipations of seamless digital experiences, it’s no surprise accommodation businesses are already making changes to meet rising expectations.
Here's a glimpse into some of the most eye-opening technologies emerging in the accommodation industry around the world – plus a peek at how technology might change the guest experience in decades to come.
Virtual Tours
Virtual tours offer potential guests a digital walkthrough of rooms, facilities and experiences before they book – a great example of ‘try before you buy’. If a picture paints a thousand words, then an immersive virtual tour is even more valuable, allowing guests to explore every corner of your property from anywhere in the world.
Marriott Hotels uses interactive virtual tour experiences to showcase their suites on its hotel websites while Shangri-La Hotels goes one further and offers virtual tours that can be viewed with Oculus-supported virtual reality headsets.
Smart set-up and interactions
Imagine what a great first impression it would make if a guest opened the front door to your property to be greeted by the sounds of their favourite album wafting through the air.
A new generation of IoT-enabled systems (Internet of Things) are helping hosts to prepare properties for their guests’ arrivals by automatically adjusting lighting, temperature and other room settings based on scheduled check-in time and preferences.
Hilton Hotel’s Hilton Honors app allows guests to control room settings from their personal device, while Wynn Las Vegas has Amazon Echo devices in all 4,748 rooms to support voice-controlled lights, curtains and news updates – Alexa has effortlessly morphed into the perfect digital butler.
Multi-sensory personalisation makes guests feel like your property was set up specially for them. This technology can also use occupancy sensors and smart controls to optimise energy usage, while ensuring perfect comfort levels the moment your guest enters your property.
Robotic room service
Autonomous robots are starting to revolutionise room service and catch the eye of accommodation futurists by operating around the clock to deliver food, towels and other requests directly to rooms – without breaks. These mechanical porters use sensors, cameras, and access to Wi-Fi to navigate lifts and corridors, with some accepting tips in the form of tweets.
International hotel chain Aloft has bolstered its workforce with a robotic butler dubbed ‘Botlr’, adept at delivering items such as snacks, newspapers and fresh towels to guest rooms 24 hours a day, as well as filling in on the front desk when human staff numbers are low. Guest feedback on Botlr’s performance is welcomed via X (formerly Twitter) using the hashtag #MeetBotlr.
Japan’s Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki became the first hotel to have robot staff, partnered with a few humans to keep them under control, featuring human and dinosaur robots at the front desk to greet guests.
Housekeeping robots
Robots aren’t just grabbing attention for their impressive feats of room service. Advanced robotic cleaners can vacuum, clean sinks, showers and scrub floors, and perform complex tasks like restocking amenities and refreshing rooms. China's Zerith H1 humanoid cleaning robot is purpose built for commercial cleaning to cater for the accommodation sector.
While the Zerith H1 is not widely used yet, simpler options like the Whiz robot vacuum cleaner are saving time and money for hotels like New York’s Garden City Hotel – where the time spent for one to vacuum all the hotel’s floors saves one whole shift for a human employee.
Facial recognition
Biometric technology is now being used by some accommodation providers to allow guests to register their facial features via an app during booking and use them as a room key and payment method throughout their stay. It verifies guest identity to grant access to rooms, speeds up traditional check-in procedures and allows front desk staff to recognise guests more easily and address them by name – making guests feel more valued.
Various methods of biometric recognition are available, but facial recognition is often preferred by hotel chains as it is reliable, quick and one of the least intrusive options. The futuristic four-star FlyZoo hotel in Hangzhou, China is one of many throughout the world that uses facial-recognition technology to streamline the customer experience it offers and increase security.
Another benefit of facial recognition is its accuracy, allowing accommodation providers who use it to significantly reduce the amount of fraud caused by identity theft.
What else might the future hold?
Holographic concierges: Move over Jetsons! Imagine 3D holographic assistants that appear at reception or in guest rooms to provide personalised recommendations and real-time assistance. We’ve already seen hologram celebrity concerts, so is it really so far fetched to think this might make its way to the accommodation industry in future?
Emotion-reading AI systems: If embedded in robots, AI technology could analyse guests’ facial expressions and voice patterns to detect satisfaction levels. This could give accommodation providers the ability to automatically adjusting communication tactics based on how individual guests are feeling, or alert staff when intervention is needed to avoid a complaint being made.
Smart-glass integration: Modern ‘smart glass’ can change from transparent to opaque or transform into a digital display screen in response to electrical or thermal signals. In accommodation, we might one day see entire walls that transform into interactive displays, allowing guests to control everything from room ambiance to placing orders simply by touching the surface.
How to make technology work for you
The most successful technology shares three characteristics: it solves a real operational challenge; it enhances rather than complicates the guest experience, and it frees your team to focus on what humans do best – creating memorable moments.
Your guests are already living in the future, perhaps it’s time to explore how you can catch up.
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