The Automated Hotel Experience

What do you envision when planning a hotel stay? Depending on where you go and where you stay, the experience is evolving thanks to advances in hotel automation technology.

Picture this: You drive up to your hotel for the evening. About 30 minutes prior to your planned arrival time, the automations begin:

• You receive a text that your room is ready. 

• You check in from your phone, bypass the front desk, and head upstairs with your suitcase.

• You pass a vacuum robot along the way in the hall. 

• You get to your door and unlock it using NFC technology embedded in your phone. 

And the automations don’t stop there.

Upon realizing you forgot your deodorant, you meander downstairs to purchase some from a CVS kiosk inside the lobby. A little later, you’re feeling hungry, so you order dinner from the hotel, which is prepared by one robot and delivered by another

This may sound like a Jetsons future, but every single one of these technologies already exists and is being implemented at least on a trial basis.

Automation Technology Solves Labor Market Challenges

Ever since the pandemic, more and more hotels are adopting many of these cost-saving, time-saving technologies. Often this adoption is borne out of necessity, given that an estimated 350,000 people have left the hotel industry since February 2020. 

The pandemic greatly accelerated both the development and use of this technology thanks to the one-two punch of physical distancing and staffing shortages.

The first technology we’re highlighting is the ways that automation is changing the check-in process.

Automated Check-In

Check-in used to require interaction with the front desk for no reason other than picking up your room keys. Not anymore: phone-based keyless entry is becoming standard in certain chains and brands.

While some hotels opt for keyless entry, others offer a front desk “staffed” by a screen, either displayed on a wall or on a wheeled robotic pole, to assist with check-in. 

The screen displays a remote (human) worker who can do things like: 

• Collect payment and registration details

• Assign keys

• Make a room change

Should something go wrong during check-in that a remote worker cannot handle, maintenance and cleaning crews are now cross-trained to troubleshoot such situations. 

Overall, the benefit to the hotel of hiring someone remotely is usually the salary; overseas workers are often offered far more than they would typically make in their region but still far less than the company would have to pay someone to afford to live in the area surrounding the hotel. In some situations, one remote worker (or a team of them) can also manage the front desk for multiple hotels.

This approach can come with some downsides. For example, who will a tourist turn to for local insights if the front desk personnel isn't local? In the hospitality business, replacing local knowledge and the human touch of being in person is hard. But in some contexts, it works—and sometimes, there isn’t much alternative.

Smart Room Amenities

Smart room amenities make use of the Internet of Things. They may include:

• Snack and drink vending in the room

• Lights and temperature controls that revert to “eco modes” when the room is unoccupied

• Personalization options like having the temperature set to a preferred level half an hour before a guest returns for the evening. 

Some hotels also set up a single tablet to use as the phone, clock/radio, TV remote, and smart room control interface.

Robotic Housekeeping

Floor-cleaning robotic housekeeping has been available and advancing for a few years now. UV-disinfecting robots are able to provide extra germ protection by wheeling into a room and blasting safe, disinfecting UV-C light onto every surface. Some robots are also capable of even more: cleaning toilets, taking bed linens away, and delivering new linens.

Promising Potential, But Not Foolproof

AI-powered hotel automation is a growing field, alleviating the hospitality industry's labor shortages and creating a smoother guest experience. Using basic, already-available automations, most hotels can keep standards high with up to 1/3 fewer staff. 

But customer satisfaction relies on these systems functioning smoothly. A robot malfunctioning, a gate or door that stops locking and unlocking, or a bad connection to a remote worker can destroy the guest experience—especially if there isn’t a human around to help. 

As with many automation technologies, the potential is highly promising, but proper implementation and management are key.