Rising labor costs and labor shortages are major problems facing the hotel industry worldwide.

Hospitality Net asked its World Panel of technology experts a very timely question whether robots could help hoteliers and where they could make the most difference?

Here is my take:

This year labor costs in hospitality consume 1/3 of hotel revenue (STR) and robotization and automation are becoming increasingly appealing to hotel owners and operators.

At this point, I believe that collaborative robots - so called cobots - working together with humans as part of a team, are best suited to help the hospitality industry.

Ex. Robots like Rosie by Tailos, thousands of which have already been deployed at various hotels, clean guest rooms 20 percent faster and public areas up to 80 percent faster than human housekeepers.

Robot waiters by Keenon Robotics and Bear Robotics are already deployed in over 25,000 restaurants worldwide and work together with the restaurant staff.

So what is stopping hoteliers from adopting robots as a solution to labor shortages?

There are three main impediments to fast robotization in hospitality:

a) reluctance to invest in new technologies by real-estate minded owners and operators,

b) lack of understanding and fear of new technology: Who will deal with it? I don't have trained staff to deal with it. It makes operations very complex, and

c) The labor unions in cities with highly-unionized hospitality labor force are against any robotization or any technology advancement that can reduce the number of paying members.

In my view, none of the above can stop the rapid advancements in the adoption of robotics and automation in our industry, in the same manner as the Luddite movement in early 19th century England could not stop the Industrial Revolution.

Max Starkov
Hospitality & Online Travel Tech Consultant & Strategist

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