FEATURE
Digital trends shaping the future of travel
Your holidays are about to look a lot different...
Next time you check into the Marriott Hotel in Ghent, Belgium, keep an eye out for Mario. Not that you can miss him, he’ s concierge. He’ s also the figure marching atop the front desk handing out key cards and recommending local attractions. Good man Mario. Except he’ s not. A man that is. He’ s a robot.
56cm high and weighing in at 6kg, Mario is a chatty pintsized android built by tech giant, IBM. He can walk, talk, blink and sing. Give him half a chance and he’ ll dance too. On hand to detail every hotel feature and amenity, Mario can speak an impressive 19 languages, never gets stressed, fails to get tired, and if needs must, he’ ll jump into the dining room and help out with breakfast. He is quite literally the all singing, all dancing face of the future.
And the Marriott in Ghent isn’ t the only residence to feature a humanoid workforce. Royal Caribbean have installed robot bartenders called B1-O and N1-C, which together spell BIONIC. Fittingly, they both work at the‘ Bionic Bar’ on-board Royal Caribbean ' s Harmony of the
Seas. Albeit not as cute as Mario( they resemble something more akin to a Nespresso machine) the duo will fetch you a drink. Punch in your order using smart tablets, or let them run free. N1-C possesses quite the talent for creating cocktails.
Then there’ s the somewhat gimmicky Henn-na Hotel located in a theme park in Japan’ s Nagasaki Prefecture. Here there are female androids wearing buttoned tunics, and rather bizarrely, a talking dinosaur who likes to don a bow tie. Robot porters cart your luggage to guestrooms, keyless doors use facial recognition and the lights are controlled by something pink sitting by your bedside. Need assistance? Type your request into a tablet. Want an extra blanket? There are vending machines full of conveniences. The only thing the world ' s first robot hotel doesn’ t have, is human staff.
These are just some examples of what the future of travel looks like. Potentially it’ s a robotic one.( But let’ s not jump to conclusions, in the 1980s we predicted the hover board and we ' re still waiting). Nevertheless, as technology continues to accelerate, the manner in which we travel is adapting.
The future’ s bright. And easy With digital masters such as Google building driverless cars, future airport transfers won’ t require language skills, apt negotiation or a lengthy discussion about the meter being set. And if Australia’ s Foreign Affairs Minister, Julie Bishop has anything to do with it, passports will be obsolete by the turn of the decade. Using cloud stored data to save personal information such as biometric data, digital photos and other identification, we could completely eliminate the need to carry a passport. Imagine that. No more cold sweats as you arrive at the terminal frantically patting your pockets and emptying your holdall.
Technology today Even today, in the elementary stages of 2017, the majority of us are using smart phones as a lightweight guidebook, over 60 % of us track holiday sunshine using weather apps, and most of us rely heavily on Google Maps to get just about anywhere. Even the most lacklustre technophobes hop online to post an epic selfie with a heavenly backdrop. And yet, in an age of such rapid development, even the phone selfie is on the cusp of extinction.
4 INSPIRE ISSUE 01. 2017 | HOUSE OF TRAVEL