The newly launched AI Smart Room will fully embrace voice control technology @ IHG China

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) announced that InterContinental Hotels & Resorts has collaborated with Baidu to introduce the next generation of intelligent hospitality. Smart Rooms, which are powered by artificial intelligence, are expected to improve and redefine customer hotel experience in China’s hospitality industry. From now on, guests staying at InterContinental Beijing Sanlitun and InterContinental Guangzhou Exhibition Centre will be amongst the first to enjoy the AI Smart Rooms. A total of 100 AI powered Club InterContinental suites will be available at InterContinental hotels in gateway cities and key destinations across China within the year. 

Customised for InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, the AI solution is developed by Baidu’s DuerOS Platform. It integrates AI technology with hotel operations, and this is supported by hardware upgrade and cloud service. Unlike traditional guest rooms, the newly launched AI Smart Room will fully embrace voice control technology to deliver a more natural human-computer interactive experience. For instance, guests will be able to freely switch settings between work and leisure modes, and enjoy a more convenient and seamless room service experience. This solution will also further fine-tune the current backstage management system, including customising information and resetting devices, making hotel management a simpler task. 

Lin Wang, Vice President of Marketing, IHG Greater China, commented: “IHG has always been at the forefront of innovation. We are thrilled to be pioneering in the hospitality industry, and exploring the various possibilities of future experience with our guests. Millennials are particularly sensitive to technology, often seeking new things to try. The AI Smart Room will undoubtedly be extremely attractive for them, paving the way for a new level of modernisation and consumer satisfaction. We will continue to make use of cutting-edge technology in hotel service and facilities in the future, and we hope this will further strengthen customer awareness and appreciation of smart technology. Meanwhile, we will provide more efficient operation and management services to our hotel owners.”

Jing Kun, General Manager of Smart Living Group, Baidu, commented: “With its well-rounded service functions, DuerOS continues to empower partners of various industries, and contributes to ecological data sharing. It is an honour to work with InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, a world renowned luxury hotel brand with over 70 years of history, and to jointly launch our solution for intelligent hospitality. This presents an exciting and dynamic change to future user experience.”

IHG and Baidu inked a strategic partnership on AI development last November. Since then, the hospitality industry has witnessed a new wave of exploration in this field. The application of AI has gone beyond smart homes and automatic driving, and now marks a new milestone in the hospitality industry. In the future, IHG and Baidu will continue the exploration and innovation in intelligent hospitality solutions, creating more smart options and experiences for guests.

TAP Coin Takes Hospitality Industry to the Next Level

HOOCH, the first blockchain-based hospitality subscription app to bring real-world experiences and rewards to the market, plans to embed the TAP Coin (TAP) Wallet in all HOOCH member apps at the public launch and release of the decentralized TAP crypto-utility token.

“TAP Coin is designed with brands and hospitality companies in mind. It’s more than a utility token. TAP Coin is your ticket to the best in restaurants, bars, and nightlife culture around the world. Additionally, we believe our approach to data is incredibly innovative and will change the how data is bought and sold. It’s really the first time that consumers have been able to monetize their data,” HOOCH CEO Lin Dai said.

Amazon’s Alexa for Hospitality, just say 'Alexa, Check Out'!

Amazon officially launched Alexa for Hospitality together with Marriott International, which said it's bringing the new feature to about 10 of its US locations over the summer, including Charlotte Marriott City Center in North Carolina and Marriott Irvine Spectrum in California. Alexa for Hospitality will also be available to other hoteliers by invitation only.

"We want to strip away the things that might create unexpected surprises or bumps in the road and create as seamless an experience as possible," Jennifer Hsieh, Marriott's vice president of customer experience innovation, said at the demo, mentioning

Alexa's new ability to check you out of your room so you won't have to stop by the front desk.

Rausch said Alexa for Hospitality will allow hoteliers to customize their Echo speakers to each property, allowing them to provide guests with local restaurant and attractions recommendations and specific information about the hotel, like pool and gym hours. Amazon also developed a new back-end system to help hotels manage a whole fleet of Echo devices.

Amazon will soon allow people to connect their Amazon accounts to their hotel Echo speakers, letting them access their Audible audiobooks and music services including Amazon Music, Spotify, and Pandora. The devices will disconnect from a guest's account at checkout.

see more at https://www.amazon.com/alexaforhospitality

KEYPR Launches KEYPR TV, the Most Advanced Casting Solution in Hospitality

Los Angeles, CA – KEYPR®, the technology company whose enterprise cloud platform is the leader in guest experience and hospitality management, is announcing its partnership with Nevaya, the go-to TV cloud entertainment company for hospitality, to create KEYPR TV. The new feature allows guests to stream content from their personal mobile devices or KEYPR's in-room tablets to hotel TVs, with no app downloads, required sign-ins, or overly-complex access codes.

As evidenced by the shift in how consumers are increasingly engaging with mobile and digital content at home the trend is also being pulled into hospitality. According to Zenith Media, nearly one-quarter of all media consumption across the world is mobile today and aggressively growing. This highlights a massive opportunity for hotels to increase guest satisfaction by adopting mobile-friendly content technologies.

Accor Hotels starts facial recognition trials in Brazil

Accor Hotels starts facial recognition trials in Brazil The French hotel chain is investing further in the technology in a bid to enhance guest experience.

Selected guests of the hotel's loyalty program will be the first users the new technology at a Pullman hotel in São Paulo.

Under the trial, guests are able to register at the desk or an information pillar at the reception then use facial recognition to access the room, therefore removing the need for keycards.

According to the company's vice-president for information technology for South America at Accor, Erwan Le Goff, the aim of the project is to offer more personalization and therefore a market differentiator for the brand.

"We realize this technology is a big market differentiator and will be utilized by the sector in the years to come. For that reason we decided to roll it out to improve our guest experience," the executive says.

"The purpose of the project is to improve the way we serve [guests]. Whether it is by giving more control or speeding up the check-in process at our hotels, we always strive to make everyone feel welcome, " he points out.