[Traveltrends] Hospitality Can Gain Competitive Advantages in Age of AI? with Josh Galun

Travelcast

Today’s travelers are looking for more personalization and convenience during their hotel stays, and hoteliers are seeking out new solutions to help meet those needs. Akia is an artificial intelligence messaging platform that allows communication between a hotel and guests and learns to anticipate guests’ needs.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Joshua Galun, Hospitality & Travel Lead at Excella Consulting. We spoke on: How Hospitality Can Gain Competitive Advantages in Age of #AI?

In the publication "The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerization?", authors Michael Osborne and Carl Benedikt Frey estimate 47% of U.S. jobs are at "high risk" of potential automation. The fact is, any repetitive job is at risk of being replaced by machines.

Even though this trend is unlikely to impact the hospitality industry in the same way, it is undeniable that replacing human interaction where it does not add any value, and increasing it where it does, is the optimum use of AI.

Hoteliers should let computers analyze trends and patterns in guest behavior, so their staff can focus on the personal interactions, without the need to browse through tons of emails just to remember if Mr. Smith prefers a poolside or a streetside room.

Humans should focus on what they do best and let computers do what they do best. What about having hotel staff help guests to their rooms and checking up on a personal level how the guest is doing and using that to optimize the stay, rather than entering addresses and checking credit cards and scanning passports.