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Hotels need to partner with an experienced physical security provider, and ensure that the entire staff understands the need to keep security top of mind - always. 

Maintain security-minded customer service  Review key card access  Establish evergreen background screening protocol  Control after-hours access  Assess location and local crime statistics  Train security officers to welcome and protect  Bolster public/private initiatives  Maintain emergency response plans  Commit to ongoing training

The open environment fostered by hotels is welcoming to guests and visitors but, unfortunately, also creates vulnerabilities that must be addressed. Ensuring that all public spaces are continually monitored by staff and security personnel is crucial in maintaining a hospitable environment. 

you have to present your passport and the software determines whether the person standing in front of the camera matches that identity.

Besides the Yobot, Yotel features automated check-ins and check-outs (similar to airport kiosks), adjustable smart beds from Serta, and a “Technowall” with a flat-screen TV and streaming audio.

Hotels have gone mobile, giving you the ability to check-in and request services via a smartphone app. The James hotels in Chicago and New York have gone a step further by outfitting their properties with iBeacon sensors. With the app, James Pocket Assistant, installed, guests automatically receive notifications once they step onto the property, which could be anything from hotel information to special discounts. The app functions as a virtual concierge, too, allowing you to communicate with staff or find nearby attractions.

If there’s one country that isn’t afraid of robot domination, it’s Japan. Huis Ten Bosch, a European-styled theme park, is planning a hotel that’s not only high-tech, but staffed by robots. The Henn-na Hotel (translation: Strange Hotel) will feature human-like robot receptionists that converse in natural language; robots even handle bellhop and custodial duties. There will be human employees, but the company’s president told CNN that he hopes robots will eventually operate 90 percent of the property.

Simplify CO2E offset models

Carbon traveler program

Traveler behavior changes

Green airports

Avoidance of short‐haul travel

creating a basic model for calculating your CO2E in 2020 if you are a buyer and establishing some credible data points for your customers to use if you are a supplier.

Proximity marketing—also sometimes called hyperlocal marketing—uses cellular technology to send marketing messages to mobile-device users who are in close proximity to a business.

While the audience is limited to those in the proximity of the business and those using its Wi-fi or Bluetooth signal, the message is very user friendly and reaches those most likely to visit a store. Who employs Proximity Marketing?

Major retailers, such as Ikea or Macy’s, can send store maps and coupons or offers to apply for their credit card or to enroll in their loyalty or rewards programs. Hotels can inform guests about on-site events and promotions or can offer to enroll them in loyalty or rewards programs. Restaurants can send special menus/daily specials, coupons, offers for loyalty programs, or perhaps send trivia questions or other games to help them pass the time while they wait for their table to be ready. Shopping malls can offer a proximity marketing benefit to their tenants by putting together a package of coupons or offer a discount at any mall retailer. Travel hubs such as airports and public transportation centers can provide maps or display ads that can be sold to local tourist destinations. General information about a product or service can be delivered through proximity marketing even if the fixed location of the business or service agency changes

This makes just about every consumer with a smart phone potentially susceptible to a proximity marketing campaign, particularly younger, tech-savvy shoppers who are more likely to own smartphone and use them while shopping.

Locations such as shopping malls, large retail outlets, and trade shows, where consumers are generally planning to spend at least an hour or two, are prime areas for a proximity marketing campaign.

One of the key benefits of proximity marketing is that its messages reach a high percentage of potential customers who are in the area.

The main purpose of the proximity marketing plan is to connect with customers while they are near your business or service and spur them into action

In the case of mobile messaging, it’s important to consider adding an opt-in component to your campaign.

More and more, customers value control over the messages they receive and desire privacy from unwanted solicitations

Mobile devices are made for short messages and quick interaction, and there is intense competition for the attention and time of the mobile device user. Therefore, in developing a proximity marketing plan, messages must be sharpened and honed to be as clear, concise, and impactful as possible.

If the goal is to drive as much traffic as possible to the business and maximize sales that day, then an electronic coupon or special offer might be the best strategy. If the store has a high turnover rate, the goal may be to make a connection with customers by offering them incentives to return.

The digital and interactive nature of most proximity marketing campaigns provides the advantage of real-time data collection of response and success rates. If a message is failing to connect, it can be easily and quickly adjusted.

Most accommodations collect a lot of information about current or potential guests and AI systems can sort through these large amounts of data and draw important conclusions that will help businesses adjust their services and strategies.

Machine learning based techniques such as natural language processing and sentiment analysis can help you extract key customer data, like certain positive or negative phrases from a voice chat, an instruction to an AI-powered assistant from your hotel or a discussion in the review section of your website. This information will allow you to customize your offer or rewards program for certain guests.

Introducing AI-based features into websites can reduce friction and provide customers personalized experiences, while also freeing up staff who can handle more complex tasks.

Regarding occupancy, an AI system can help businesses by providing relevant insights into the occupancy patterns of the area they're located in. In addition, it can dynamically adjust pricing rates from day to day.

Furthermore, AI can parse multiple sources of information and identify if there are any upcoming events that might influence your occupancy rate or might determine the price to go up.

airports are benefiting from AI-powered robots too. These robotic assistants can help passengers by carrying out a series of tasks including providing information in different languages, performing check-in activities, etc

The sudden spike in cancellations and limited interest in future travels is surely putting OTAs through an uncomfortable patch.

Considering the weak booking period that is to follow, the group has decided to reduce its cost base, curtailing projects, reduce marketing, overheads and discretionary spend, freeze new hiring, deferring salary increases and waiving off management bonuses.

The goodwill earned based on their actions during the ongoing crisis will likely pay off when the world bounces back and returns to traveling.

In-Airport Initiatives: OTAs such as Indonesia’s Traveloka handed over face masks to travelers visiting the affected countries (until border lockdowns were announced). Several also shared best airport and in-flight hygiene practices with their customer base.

Operating calls come with attached overheads, and despite the scale of cancelations most OTAs are absorbing this as part of their customer service initiatives. OTAs, however (and obviously) are prioritizing their assistance based on travel dates.

a number of OTAs have rolled out self-service tools, including chatbots, to mitigate the pressure from call center operations and offer instant resolution to travelers’ needs. These (semi-) automated modules are found across OTA websites and apps, which allows travelers to either opt for OTA credit for future bookings or instant refunds (subject to the airline policy).

With all the components now hurting, OTAs also have the unique position to revive growth in the industry.

Trip.com recently launched Travel Revival V Plan in China, the ground zero for Covid-19. Through the initiative, the OTA group aims to bring together hotels, tours, flights and attractions; and contribute over RMB 1 billion to boost measures for travel industry recovery.

chatbots

increase their p

nd boost customer experience

transformed the mode of processing booking searches,

providing relevant information

two-thirds of respondents find AI chatbots useful when making travel arrangements

applying voice assistants that give tremendous advantages to both visitors and hotels

voice-based digital devices are usually connected with various hotel facilities

quick reception desk requests, automated room control, Internet connection, regional weather forecast, and hands-free calling

regulate the physical environment in the room,

voice-activated devices extremely beneficial as they enable them to bring down labor costs and ensure perfect services nonstop

staff always remains aware of guests’ requests and can reply quickly or text the necessary department

provide quick access to travel facilities, and, more importantly, grant a high degree of security for the staff and travelers.

ecognizes people in a few seconds by comparing their lips, eyes, ears, and chin with the similar ones available in the database.

Baggage key parameters and individual features allow for validating it to a certain passenger, not for a single trip but on other journeys when a person uses their bag

64% of Americans support the idea of utilizing AI-based recognition methods at airports

reduced check-in time so that customers do not waste their time in long lines.

utilizing machine learning in the travel industry

identify individuals by their facial features.

75% of people favor personalization in various forms of modern travel businesses

enables them to tailor specific services adjusted to customer preferences

Tourism product feedback given by people on different travel review platforms, professional travel blogs, or social media are valuable data sources for travel agencies, hoteliers, restaurant owners, and tourists.

it is believed to be true and unbiased as it is usually backed by relevant photos made by travelers during their trips.

Text-based comments undergo sentiment analysis that uses Machine Learning algorithms and Natural Language Processing technologies to study person’s opinions and ideas about certain tourism services and products.

can transform the obtained information into a competitive advantage.

Automated baggage systems at airports testify to the successful AI applications in the travel industry.

modernized tracking and handling methods

seamless experiences for airlines and their customers through reliable baggage services

photo identification to trace baggage for tourists,

forecast the amount of bags a particular person may have based on previously obtained travel data.

enhance decision-taking and planning, ensure results-driven optimization, and improve scheduling procedures

benefit from special airlines apps designed to find the lost baggage or track it when it is still in transit.

appreciate the degree of self-service provided by virtual assistants and robots.

implemented robotic technologies to speed-up check-in procedures, keep loads of information about their clients, and multitask beyond human capabilities.

Robots enhance the guest experience

AI-based virtual assistants and robots have become very helpful for international travelers as they have embedded translation software enabling the guests to conduct communication in their native language.

tendency played an important role in delivering hygienic and safe services without affecting availability.

Daily services performed by hospitality robots may vary from cleaning and baggage carrying to room food delivery.

develop cutting-edge travel apps enabling us to forecast flights and travel-related things like hotels

serve travelers in terms of finding the cheapest price and providing details on flight costs in the future.

With a large dataset already in place, integrating this technology into our platform could hyper-personalize search results for travelers and supports our vision of offering open-ended, flexible search options. 

saved more than eight million hours in agent time, allowing travelers to resolve issues faster with self-service. 

but the technology is still in a relative state of infancy

ChatGPT really captured everyone's attention when it launched,

- it's already dividing opinion with responses that can range from entertaining and creative to glaringly inaccurate

It's too early to say whether the likes of ChatGPT can truly emulate those very human instincts.

First, people need to recognize that it's not generating anything new as much as scraping and regurgitating the internet

Every single tour operator, even single hotel, every transport company now has the same opportunity to be as productive as a company much bigger than themselves. I see that as a commodity – everyone has access to it therefore, in some ways, where’s the value. But it’s the most productivity-enhancing thing I’ve ever seen. 

However I don’t think that’s the real impact. I think that’s just the start of the game. Once AI starts to get into the actual experiences – not just tour experiences but hotels, airports… the ability to speed up and enhance the actual experience, especially in something that is not a good experience at the moment like an airport, is going to be quite dramatic.And the real game changer... is once the general public has it, it changes everything. You are a tour operator, and you create itineraries. The consumer can now do exactly the same thing as you and do it in real time. And 1,000 people can create 1,000 different experiences tailored to what they like. So the creation of a travel experience on the ground, which tour operators have dominated, is going to be disrupted by travelers being able to do it themselves. 

it’s not the live data, it’s not up to date, the facts may not be 100% and it doesn’t have geolocation.

The weakness at the moment is it’s only scraping data through 2021. So

This could make entirely new businesses or it can destroy businesses.

will save hundreds of thousands of dollars on freelance costs, so there's big disruption to come.

For basic service copy – simple product descriptions, basic articles, email campaigns, that sort of thing, it's going to be very useful for brands and very painful for content creators.

There’s some interesting use cases that we hope to explore such as improving automation and responses for common customer service requests through chat (and eventually even speech and video), as well as concierge-like services to recommend travel destinations, create personalized itineraries and the like.

. So there are issues with accuracy and truthfulness, and it needs human expertise to fact-check the output.

ChatGPT might herald a revolution in automated content creation, but I also think it could create a new premium for genuine human expertise too.

ChatGPT has been trained with information existing until end of 2021. Travel is a super dynamic category where this morning’s information is no longer relevant a few hours even minutes later. Inventory availability, prices, category of rooms/seats/cars change by the minute. You need good old-fashioned technology like CRS, WBE, RMS, etc. to handle these dynamics, not ChatGPT.

Google can provide a much better AI-powered chatbot than ChatGPT that spews much better answers in milliseconds, but how are they going to make money?

Specific to ChatGPT, I believe that this technology will eventually be used in conjunction with a brand’s own content, in addition to the internet as a whole, so that it can be trained and customized by the brand to answer questions.

What’s also really interesting is how this once again demonstrates that the most disruptive innovations often come from outside the travel industry.

ChatGPT is gaining that trust in its ubiquity and daily usage, so I think travelers could be much more likely to accept its itinerary recommendations without nearly as much research and shopping around. This has implications for human agents too.

, with technology including voice and facial recognitio

robot concierge,

robotics being used for luggage purposes.

robots can improve automation and perform tasks without tiring, it is important to acknowledge limitations as well, including an inability to quickly adapt to circumstances.

ability for robots to offer support for a variety of different languages.

chatbots

Airport security

hotel robot butlers and robot luggage porters,

travel agents are also looking into the use of robots, especially as a means of pre-qualifying customers.

Amadeus have experimented with a robot called 1A-TA, which is powered by artificial intelligence. Rather than forcing customers to wait during busy periods, the robot is able to immediately get to work, finding out about their needs and preferences and passing the information on when they actually speak to a human travel agent.

chatbots have been one of the most common uses of robots within the hospitality sector and these can be used to deliver basic customer service, or for more complex tasks, like hotel or flight bookings.

recognition, be it facial or cornea or fingerprint, could soon be your way through passport control: it’s already being trialled at Changi airport in Singapore

You might have heard of smart cities. Super-connected, intelligently-planned urban conurbations aimed at making life an absolute dream, both now and in the future, through the use of technology

And while ‘more planes’ doesn’t sound very environmentally friendly, that AI technology can be used to make all kinds of transport more efficient. Fewer empty planes and trains, less stacking over airports, more intelligent planning of onboard catering (no more fish dishes = less food waste IMO – who eats them?) – it all helps the goal of green tourism

active security components", include video surveillance (CCTV), access control, intrusion detection systems and X-ray machines at the hotel's main entrances

Security cameras in the hotel lobby, coded access cards - that's it

hard" security systems, which can help avert or manage serious threats such as terrorist attacks.

investors or owners of a hotel property often ignore these chain-specific security standards for cost reasons and provide budgets that cover only the minimum required by law.

between different types of "passive" security

hotels is very simplistic: security cameras in the lobby or other public areas and coded access control cards for elevators and rooms

We have highly sophisticated danger management systems today, particularly at airports, elements of which could be implemented in large hotels or connected to professional expert systems via remote security service centres

Outside of "classic trouble spots" such as the Middle East, people have a false sense of security.

However, the vast majority of hotel operators are reluctant to make additional voluntary investments. Even insurance companies have not really taken up the opportunities presented

The effective interlink between security equipment and security processes to protect persons and assets in real time is the main issue.

Hotels may be concerned about the costs of higher-level security systems but criminal activity could cost a hotel its reputation and not to mention, a person his or her life