According to the market intelligence firm Tractica,
voice-activated assistant number of users now exceeds 500 million. Although
these programs have long been used through a smartphone, Amazon and Google are
now commercializing smart speakers. Apple is also about to launch his device,
the HomePod. These speakers have various microphones that can pick up your
voice wherever you are standing in the room, and can be used for answering
questions, monitoring other devices in the room or communicate information.
The potential applications of this technology in
hospitality are multiple: Marriott has already been testing the Amazon’s Echo
Dots since 2017 in one of its Texas hotels, the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill
Country Resort & Spa. Amazon’s Alexa can be used to adjust the lights and
the air-conditioning, but also as a personal concierge: customers can order
room service or make some requests to the housekeeping department thanks to the
voice-activated assistant.
Best Western is also experimenting voice-activated
rooms with Alexa; the company sees this technology as a way not only to enhance
the customer experience, but also to facilitate the employees’ work. For
instance, housekeepers can report that the room has been cleaned or that they
need some maintenance very easily with the Echo Dot. Concerns for the
housekeepers’ safety (sexual harassment…) can also be solved with the device.
And again, communication between the customer and the different department
employees of the hotel can be very much facilitated by smart speakers.
Voice-activated assistants are used not only by
hotels, but start to gain importance in the rest of the tourism industry as
well. Smart speaker users can interact at home with KLM’s new assistant, Blue
Bot. The assistant provides advice on what to pack according to the weather
forecast and to the length of stay. Travel agencies also have their assistant;
Expedia and Virgin Holidays use Amazon’s Alexa to help their customers manage
their trip. Expedia even allows to rent a car directly with Alexa.
The potential of smart speakers and
artificial intelligence as a whole is huge for the tourism industry; voice
activated assistants can enhance service quality, communication processes and
might allow labour cost savings. However, it raises some concerns. Data privacy is the main one; what if
the microphones of these smart speakers were used to listen to our
conversations, and how much data obtained by our exchanges with the vocal
assistant is stored and analysed? Furthermore, isn’t hospitality about humans
welcoming other humans? Even though these technological improvements are made
to enhance service quality, constantly reducing the level of human interactions
doesn’t seem to match with the values of the sector…
How about you? What do you think about voice-activated
assistance technology in tourism?
Kenza &
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