Would you employ a robot?

If you’re an avid fan of Robocop and The Matrix, the future is no longer just a vision of scenes from movies like Back To The Future, but a new type of colleague or even companion for the likes of Elon Musk: which is real robots taking over the world…

In the hotel industry, sometimes it feels like the future is now. As many of the leading hotel brands have started using robots to improve the guest experience. In fact, a few have been testing it for some time. The world’s first robot hotel opened in 2015, located in Nagasaki, Japan called Henn na Hotel (meaning ‘Weird Hotel’). It employs robots throughout the hotel for information, reception, storage and check-in and check-out services, utilising voice and face recognition technology. Replacing human service with robots has evoked mixed opinions within the hospitality industry amongst both staff and guests alike. Many self-catering accommodations, modern hotels and even some glamping resorts are offering self check-in services along with personalised information apps at the scan of a QR code. The future is not just now, it has been present in the hospitality industry for some years.

My first encounter with a staffed robot was in a hotel bar when two – actually rather cute –dinky sized robots approached me asking if I would like a drink. It was the blue and pink dickie bows to define each one’s robot sex that added a cute factor… not like a human but more so like a pet you wanted to take home and help you do the house chores! No need to wait for my drink to be served at the bar, room service from the bow tied bots was also an option as they swept across the floor like a silent version of a Hetty hoover into the lift, onto whichever floor level and room number their service was called for. By the end of my stay, they began to feel strangely human-like.

Are bot staff the future to reducing costs and bettering operations?

From increased time efficiency, artificial intelligence offers programmed information that is consistent to coordinate with the facilities, services and local information in multiple languages to effectively communicate with guests; not forgetting waiter service, room service and cleaning operations. It is no surprise that the global market for hotel robots is expected to grow from $79 million in 2020 to $338 million by 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 32.8 percent, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets. This growth is being driven by the need for efficient and costeffective solutions.

Benefits to employing a robot

Although the investment of a robot can be a high cost initially, you are sure to accelerate overall cost reductions of human staff salaries, as well as eliminate the need of legal staff contracts, holiday, sick pay, paid parental leave and dismissal rights along with all other complicated human rights laws that are associated with employment. That is, of course, if the world doesn’t get even crazier, adding human rights laws for robots too!

They don’t get tired: they can work 15–20hour shifts on one charge – a popular option for 24-hour hotels, whom can offer robot service during the ghost hours, rather than paying a member of staff to sit doing the bare minimum during night hours.

Financially, it establishes a cost saving benefit to the employers, but where does it then leave the 320 million people who are employed in the Travel and Tourism sector worldwide?

Working in harmony with humans

As time efficient and cost effective as bot staff are, robotics-related offerings tend to be focused on a specific function, such as vacuuming or delivering certain items to guests, rather than multidimensional performance of tasks identical to humans. The preference for many employers of robots in today’s market is to not discard human employees, but to assist in allowing employees to do their work better, more efficiently and more quickly, whilst the robot staff do more of the ‘running around’ tasks such as room service, food and beverage service and towel service. Automation can also alleviate staff shortages.

For a majority of accommodation providers, finding good cleaning staff can be a challenge. Although robots are not yet as effective at cleaning as humans, they are serving a daily purpose that helps relieve the manpower of physical housekeeping chores, whilst maintaining more frequency of cleaning public areas (especially hoovering which has seen substantial growth also within domestic households). The use of robots in public areas is still a novelty and the technology does not always respond correctly, as developments to reaching superior standards of robotic service continue.

Other than being purely technologically reliant on a robot functioning to perform 100% accurately all of the time, most guests appear to be warming to the Wall-E type robotic service culture that is still unique and novel amongst travel and tourism.

By Kerry Roy, Founder of Camp Katúr & Cerchio del Desiderio