Artificial Intelligence Doesn’t Take a Vacation: Rooms Feel Too, Don’t They?!

The introduction of digital solutions that can facilitate travel organization for guests and enhance their stay at the desired destination has become simply unavoidable. Now, in relation to the competition in the tourism sector, it is a factor of advantage that can attract tourists, offer vacations according to their wishes, and thus ensure their repeated return.

In the field of digital solutions for the tourism industry, Alfatec Group is primarily focused on hotel chains, individual hotels, and camps, providing solutions aimed at improving guest relations, increasing accommodation occupancy and business profitability, and supporting decision-making in company management. This is emphasized by Boris Škorić, Director of the Business Intelligence Sector at the company. Thus, the Alfatec Elarion Hospitality platform, he says, allows guests to communicate in real-time with the hotel/camp, report problems, order room service, and give compliments and criticisms.

– Hotels thus use artificial intelligence and machine learning to influence guest satisfaction, analyze and synthesize guest reviews on all online platforms, respond to them, have the best accommodation prices compared to the competition, and analyze all parts of the business. Alfatec Elarion Hospitality unifies all this into one solution, providing users with significant savings in time and money and greater efficiency. Digital solutions in tourism today are indispensable as they ensure that accommodation service providers stand out with their strongest attributes and fill capacities as much as possible. When other conditions are taken into account, such as the problem of retaining company knowledge and experience due to employee turnover, the general lack of qualified workforce, rising overall business costs, and general uncertainty, solutions that provide decision-making support and optimize business in such conditions become inevitable – thinks Škorić.

Avatar Becomes a Chatbot

The software company Softwise from Čakovec has developed an info kiosk for hotels, restaurants, and tourist boards of cities and municipalities that also uses animated avatar technology for interaction with visitors. In addition to improving service to clients, it also facilitates staff work as a chatbot ChatGPT, or digital assistant. The avatar, i.e., artificial intelligence, responds immediately to voice queries in the user’s native language, and the response is displayed in such a way that the animated avatar mimics a real person with gestures and speech, describes the owner and director of Softwise, Drago Bratko. The system is also suitable for shopping and business centers as well as airports. Softwise started the project at the beginning of the year, and since it fully stands behind the system, everything can be customized according to customer wishes. Thus, it is possible to adapt the entire visual identity to the customer’s graphic identity, and artificial intelligence stores data and learns about everything that is important about each customer. At the same time, periodic analyses are conducted based on the history of user queries to include any necessary additional data for future inquiries. The system will be upgraded, and Bratko plans the possibility of using part of the system via mobile phones. This solution is primarily aimed at younger generations, while middle-aged and older individuals tend to prefer using kiosks.

– We are currently preparing and upgrading the system with the new GPT-4 model. We are enhancing the back-end, i.e., customer support, with additional configuration options for the entire platform and kiosk. Interested customers are also coming forward, so we plan to set up the first trial devices in about a month – says Bratko.

From Paper to Platform

As a Croatian product IT company specialized in developing cloud-based back-office software for customer support for travel agencies, Lemax offers agencies the opportunity to transfer all their business processes from paper, Excel, Word, and various unconnected tools and software entirely to Lemax, says Iva Vodopija, Head of the Sales and Marketing Department at Lemax, adding that Lemax, as an innovative online platform, supports the entire business of travel agencies, from contracting with partners and suppliers, calculating margins, creating packages, invoicing, and sending invoices to clients and partners to performing operational tasks at the destination.

– Lemax reduces the possibility of errors during work in Excel spreadsheets or retyping products that are in multiple unconnected systems, enables a high level of efficiency, better partner and client experience, and significantly greater agency profitability. Tourism, one of the largest sectors of the economy in the world, is an industry that has not been focused on digitalization until now, but that is changing. Many agencies recognized the need for digitalization precisely during the corona crisis as the needs and habits of travelers changed. Transitioning to digital reduces manual labor and the time spent managing data across multiple systems, spreadsheets, and tools. A strong customer support platform connected to the internet is also needed, where inquiries will be received and responded to, and online reservations enabled. And all this at the speed that customers expect when shopping online – explains Vodopija.

Raising Satisfaction

According to ICT account manager, industrial solutions sales at A1 Hrvatska Zrinka Marić, their users can always count on the most advanced solutions, highlighting smart rooms that ‘feel’ the presence of a guest and adjust the ambiance of the stay accordingly while optimizing energy consumption. She emphasizes that these rooms can be controlled (dimming, air conditioning, or lighting) using a TV device, web, or mobile application, or tablet.

– There is also a smart waste management service that, in addition to reducing the amount of other waste, converts organic waste into useful compost. The IPTV system service is connected to all other hotel systems, so the system knows which guest is coming to which room and what their preferences are. Among the services are systems for renting additional hotel amenities, such as e-bikes and e-scooters, which do not burden the reception, smart parking, and access control. With the introduction of each new solution, costs such as energy, waste disposal and handling, or operational labor costs are reduced – notes Marić.

HT Group offers a range of basic services such as stable, secure, and quality Wi-Fi networks at tourist destinations, website creation, fiscalization, and charging stations for electric cars, lists Marijana Bačić, a member of the Management Board and Chief Operating Officer for business customers at Hrvatski Telekom. For upgrades, she says they also offer complex integrated solutions such as data centers for hosting computer systems and data storage systems, CRM (customer relationship management) for managing customer relationships, hotel TV, and solutions for communicating with guests through channels such as a cloud call center.

– If you enable a traveler to make an online reservation or immediately purchase the desired trip or ticket, their satisfaction increases because everything could be done from the comfort of their armchair. This increases the likelihood that they will return to that service or application for organizing their next trip. Furthermore, there are applications for easier use of local transport at the destination, finding the best restaurant or café, using augmented realities and tours. Provided services also need to be fiscalized, but also easily charged to the traveler, for which a cash register with card payment is suitable. There are also a number of communication solutions that can be connected to the CRM for additional personalization and creating a better relationship with the guest, for which it is best to utilize the traveler’s smartphone – emphasizes Bačić.