IHG Hotels Partners with Google to Build AI Trip Planner

With just a few keystrokes, guests receive a secure RFID keycard to open their door equipped with dormakaba locks. The electronic access system integrates with the property management system and is secure, easy to use. The technology is a product of dormakaba, a hospitality solution provider that is part of a global security group based in Rümlang, Switzerland. The company’s products include secure Saflok and Ilco electronic door locks and other hotel security systems. Today, hoteliers are becoming increasingly focused on data-driven personalization strategies. They are seeking ways to enhance the quality of the guest experience by understanding guests’ wants, needs, situations and preferences at a granular level and then acting upon that understanding to deliver superior, tailored services.

It even formatted the hotel reviews – with a star rating from one to five, followed by a title of the review, then a main body of text containing the review itself. We did not ask it for this format – and it is striking that it is identical to the one used by Tripadvisor. The four-star hotel in Kraków in Poland, the review says, is “excellent”, a “short walk from the main square” and boasts a “first-rate” spa and fitness centre.

Before joining CXOCIETY as editor for FutureIoT in July 2019, she was assistant editor of ComputerWorld Hong Kong. Based in Hong Kong, she started with regional IT publications under CMP Asia (now Informa), including Asia Computer Weekly, Intelligent Enterprise Asia and Network Computing Asia and Teledotcom Asia. She had contributed articles to South China Morning Post, TechTarget and PC Market among others. Based on statistics collated from N Bot in the half year it has been deployed in the 211-room hotel, bottled water was the most frequent delivery request between 10 p.m. And 7 a.m., followed by towels, slippers, tooth brushes, shampoos and body cleansers. Most of those deliveries were before midnight with guests saying they appreciated avoiding in-person room service late at night.

More recently, he has branched out with the creation of ExpressRez, the premier contact center for the Bed and Breakfast industry, and with the creation of Annette™, The Virtual Hotel Agent™, the first AI-powered voice bot for the hotel industry. The WhatsAppotel Chatbot will offer hotels the ability hotel bot to engage with guests and respond to their inquiries intelligently and with full automation which is available round the clock. The WhatsApp chatbot can be programmed to communicate in over 50 languages and hence, can connect the hotel with potential guests and visitors in their local language.

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Axiom Hotel near Union Square has been using a room service drone by Savioke seen on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020, in San Francisco, Calif. More hotels are using these robots during the pandemic to aid the ‘touchless’ environment hotels. Axiom Hotel near Union Square has been using a room service drone by Savioke seen waiting for the elevator on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020, in San Francisco, Calif. Manager Jeremy Kueffner shows Astro, a room service drone, at the library of the Axiom Hotel seen on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020, in San Francisco, Calif. That the AI text bot can create more personable interactions with the consumer than an anthropomorphized robot suggests that it’s not the visual that creates a human touch, but the content.

It’s really giving people new opportunities and different opportunities that would be an important thing, I think, for a lot of people. Plus, I think people also enjoy new challenges and coming up with new things. Of course, when we’re reporting, we’re talking about which areas there are.

Hoteliers who act now, leveraging AI to streamline operations and enhance guest interactions, will be well-positioned to lead the industry. With John Smallwood’s vision and Travel Outlook’s Annette, guest-led conversational AI is no longer just a trend; it is the future of hotel management. In the current beta version of the plug-in, ChatGPT will recommend and save three to five different hotel options per search. In the future, Murthy says the aim will be to have the tool consistently offer five recommendations for each search as the technology becomes more accurate.

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This includes a new logo and user interface with bolder fonts and refreshed colors and illustrations. Along these are many significant updates to the app’s features, giving users better ways to connect with others. The rooms have also replaced keycard slots with scanners.

Since its founding in 1968, Belluna Co., Ltd. has expanded from the core mail order sales business to a wide range of services. Its corporate philosophy is to “enrich customers’ lives through food, clothing, lifestyle and recreational goods and services.” Granbell Hotel is a subsidiary of Belluna Co., Ltd. and offers trendy hotels uniquely designed for the local environment. Some of the problems stem from creative ideas that didn’t pan out, like a robot velociraptor that staffed the check-in desk. The robot will ‘bridge the gap between guest needs and the response time that they expect‘, said lijuan chen of alibaba AI labs, the group that made the space egg, in a press statement. Alfred was introduced as a way for guests to limit interactions during the pandemic.

It’s the law that says you can’t access the computer system without permission, and if you do… The history of the CFAA is not cut and dry, and certainly, it does not always get applied well. One of the other interesting parts of the comparison to Google is where the results come from. Right now, I think a lot of people are reevaluating the deal Google gets, which is to index all the websites and then show the results, and then AI has made it so that Google might read the results for you.

Now the hotel group is roll out these service delivery robots to five other properties. As it pursues its digital innovation strategy, Hilton has remained dedicated to creating exceptional online experiences for guests. To meet their ever-evolving and diverse demands, Hilton has been exploring different channels and platforms that can provide guests with a flawless online experience.

Guests can start a conversation requesting information on local experiences, dining and more. Then, the “virtual concierge” will respond with its recommendations, which are vetted by the brand’s human Navigators. The technology can also identify deals on restaurants, tours and more. The hotel brand is the latest to adopt AI-assisted technology in a bid to personalize the guest experience. Romie can assist with group chat trip planning when travelers “invite” the virtual assistant to their SMS group chat to “listen in” on vacation plans.

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I’m excited for the stories of people trying to jailbreak the AI agents and make them get angry with them. They encounter these chatbots, and their first instinct is to break them in that way. First, you have to get from your home to the airport, then the airplane takes you to the place, then you have to get from the airport to your accommodations, then when you get to the accommodations, maybe you have dinner reservations…

Dubbed the Matchmaker, the feature will let a user’s close circle interact with their profiles in a meaningful way. Using the feature will generate a link which users can share with up to 15 different people. They don’t even need a Tinder profile to start recommending. Anyone, even those without Tinder, can participate in a Matchmaker session.

Since opening in 2015, the hotel has raised publicity by “employing” hundreds of bizarre robots that ranged from bizarre-but-helpful-I-guess to downright annoying, according to The Wall Street Journal. The robot helpers made for a fun gimmick, but weren’t quite ready for the big leagues — a blow not just to dreams of an automated world, but to Japan’s pop-culture image as a leader in the space. Inside the guest room, FINGI controls lights and air conditioning. The all-day-dining restaurant Crave offers a 3,000-bottle wine cellar catalogued on its iPad for guests to swipe for pairings with Thailand’s famous fried noodle dish, pad thai.

Since launch, Four Seasons Chat has exchanged over 3.5million messages, allowing guests to connect with guest services personnel on property in real time, for any need, creating more opportunities to personalize the travel experience. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. The main reason for hotels to introduce Bebot is to increase operational efficiency. Certain tasks like check-in and check-out involve human involvement in many cases, but repetitive tasks like answering simple questions or giving out directions can be easily handled by today’s AI technologies.

When callers hear Annette’s voice and conversational manner, they’re don’t hear a robotic voice bot, they hear a familiar voice with a conversational tone. “Our Navigators celebrate the culture, ideas, people and talents of their neighborhoods and provide their personal recommendations on what to see and do in their backyard. RENAI By Renaissance makes this even more accessible and inclusive,” said Schneider, adding that the technology helps “cut through the clutter” of information travelers have access to and personalize the guest experience. What we’re doing is providing what the customer wants.

I think the way we were doing it, though, was a very good way to do it because the only… So, here’s the thing, while we certainly were not pleased with being called a gatekeeper in what is one of the most competitive industries in the world, the idea that we have such, as the regulators alleged, a dominant position. And I’m like, “Well, do you feel that you don’t have another way to travel? So, we have to follow the rules, and we are following the rules, and we are doing all the things necessary for that. And I don’t see it as being a huge issue for us at this time. But I do see on principle, it’s unfortunately going to something that I’ve said several times.

Visit us online for more about our hotels and reservations and IHG One Rewards. To download the IHG One Rewards app, visit the Apple App or Google Play stores. With a family of 19 hotel brands and IHG One Rewards, one of the world’s largest hotel loyalty programmes, IHG has over 6,300 open hotels in more than 100 countries, and a development pipeline of over 2,000 properties. ” Additional features will launch in the months following the Travel Planner’s public launch.

Savioke is working on a pilot program at a local office complex, Booth says. Now, though, Dash and its brethren fit neatly into the “touchless” experience that businesses dependent on high volumes of people are trying to cultivate — alongside plexiglass partitions and plastic-wrapped disposable toothbrushes. Beyond hotels, bots are also picking up the slack in all kinds of industries.

There’s other issues here, especially in the comparison to Google. Everybody would like customers to come to them directly and at no cost. Distribution’s a very important part about how you sell stuff, but the desire to sell directly has always been there and always will be there. So, while I also run the top, the Booking Holdings, I’m also CEO of Booking.com. But it does require some coordination because what you don’t want to do is waste time, energy, effort, money on doing things that are duplicative and things that you don’t think are — that are going to give you incremental benefit.

In the rooms, a lamp-size robot in the shape of a fat pink tulip called Tuly answers simple questions such as, “What time is it? ” You can also tell it to turn the room lights on or off. He has big ambitions for his robot hotel concept and wants to open another soon in Japan and, later, abroad. He is also keen to add other languages, such as Chinese and Korean, to the robots’ vocabulary.

Robots can certainly automate tasks and improve efficiency, taking over repetitive tasks that do not require human intelligence and stepping in as an ideal solution for the industry’s labour shortage. Hilton’s robot concierge, Connie and Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki, Japan, which is the world’s first hotel staffed entirely by robots, is proof of that. Whether 2025 is the year for hotel robots depends mainly on how we define “robots.” If we’re referring to physical, humanoid machines, like those seen at the Henn na Hotel in Osaka, Japan, the answer is a clear NO. While these robots attract attention, they often provoke the “uncanny valley” effect, making guests uncomfortable, and their practical utility in hospitality remains limited. However, if by “robots” we mean software-based Robotic Process Automation, then the answer is a resounding YES. Travel Outlook is an innovative, custom off-site central reservations office (CRO) service that serves as either a primary or overflow reservations department for hotels.

We call them sometimes steer co’s across brand stuff. We’re having different groups have meetings across brands to ensure that all the companies are learning what’s working in one, what’s working in another. A lot of the opportunity right now for a lot of companies is increasing productivity through generative AI stuff. So, we want to make sure, well, what’s working here?

His experience in technology and hospitality merged in his development of Travel Outlook, the world-class hospitality contact center. AI-powered systems, like guest-led conversational AI, can handle a variety of guest interactions without human intervention, from answering frequently asked questions (FAQs) to providing real-time updates. The ability to manage these tasks efficiently not only improves guest satisfaction but also reduces the burden on hotel staff, freeing them to focus on higher-priority, personalized interactions. Which isn’t to say the renowned Canadian hotel group isn’t making use of innovative technology. For starters, the messaging platform translates 100-plus languages in real time, allowing for response times reportedly averaging 90 seconds or less. The service is currently available in 106 Four Seasons hotels and resorts and the Four Seasons Private Jet and will soon be available in many more, given the fact that Four Seasons currently has morethan 50 projects under planning or development.

Although AI tools such as ChatGPT went live only recently, Tripadvisor has seen an impact. “This year, Tripadvisor has already removed more than 20,000 reviews that we have reason to believe contain AI-generated text, across more than 15,000 properties in 159 countries,” it says. As it deals with a potential onslaught of AI-generated reviews, it says that it “made the decision that, for the time being, we will not allow reviews that have been identified as AI-generated until we are more familiar with this type of content”.

• If somebody doesn’t want to work with us, that’s a perfectly reasonable thing.
• The reason they don’t know is because in the US, we’re not as big in the homes area as we are in other parts of the world.
• I have friends who have flown to Europe, and it’s cheaper to buy a ticket to a Taylor Swift show and a flight and a hotel than it was in the markets that we have here in the United States.
• These surreal machines will be based in different areas of the hotel.

IHG is designing the tool using the Google Cloud platform for building AI software, called Vertex AI. And the AI comes from Google’s proprietary Gemini (formerly Bard) model. Click here to join your colleagues and stay up to date on the latest hotel news and trends.

A giant robotic arm, usually seen in manufacturing, sits in glass quarters in the lobby. It lifts one of the boxes stacked into the wall and puts it through a space in the glass, where a guest can place an item in it, to use as a locker. Henn na Hotel, as it is called in Japanese, was shown to reporters on Wednesday, complete with robot demonstrations, before it opened on Friday.

Guests can receive virtual booking assistance from the WhatsAppotel chatbot at every stage of the booking process. Prism Digital digital marketing agency in the UAE has launched an AI-driven WhatsApp for business chatbot service for the hotel industry in the Middle East and North Africa. While the ChatGPT App company is officially launching its app and chatbot today, Layla already has thousands of followers on Instagram, thanks to Beautiful Destinations’ network. The founders believe that the Instagram chatbot provides a great entry point for users to look for different destinations to travel to.

Having duplicative tech stacks is often the biggest cost. Well, Kayak actually being very different, being a meta [search engine], they actually go across all… A better example would be Priceline, Agoda, and Booking and making sure that we are concentrating on the areas you want to concentrate. What we don’t want to do is have somebody try and take business away from another brand and end up in a case where all we’re doing is giving away money ChatGPT to somebody else because, say, we’re overpaying for marketing, let’s say, in an area. Well, I think the way you phrase that may not be the way I would look at it. As I say, I hope a lot of people in the US — I think a lot of people in the US — know about Booking.com, and throughout the world. The only places where we would have trouble filling your travel needs would be places that we’re not allowed to operate because of either US or EU Law.

You mentioned the idea that you’re going to help people with all of their travel needs, basically, wherever they are. There’s a lot happening in travel that I want to talk about, but I’m curious about the big picture. We got really into why a company like Booking.com exists in the first place. Anyone who’s part of a hotel or airline reward program here in the US has probably noticed recently that those companies are working really hard right now to cut out the middleman and get you to book directly with them. Some airlines, for example, now only let you earn reward miles for direct booking.

Saeed mentioned that the startup pushes people toward using Layla’s own app on Instagram after a few conversation exchanges. In the app, people can create different lists, share them with friends, and have different chats with Layla about various trips. Plus, the app allows them to show videos, ticket prices and hotel options in a richer way. And that’s just the beginning of the perks when you sign up for this AI travel app. OneAir Elite members can get up to 60% off stays at select hotels, plus significant discounts on rental cars, activities and more.