Alibaba’s Futuristic Tackle Hospitality Expertise: FlyZoo As a Gamechanger

FlyZoo Lodge’s tech-centered enterprise mannequin touches the total cycle of the visitor journey and extends to different areas of enterprise.

The hospitality trade has noticed important transformation pushed by technological developments within the final decade. Lodges have more and more adopted progressive options to streamline operations, improve buyer expertise, and improve their aggressive benefit. The arrival of AI, facial recognition expertise, robotics, and a rise in mobile-friendly companies have revolutionized the normal lodge trade, shifting away from guide, time-consuming procedures to automated, personalised companies. 

Within the context of this rising digital development, FlyZoo Lodge has emerged as a beacon of technology- powered hospitality. Launched by Alibaba’s on-line journey platform, Fliggy, in collaboration with Alibaba AI Labs, FlyZoo Lodge pioneers a imaginative and prescient of ‘future inns’. Located in Hangzhou, China, the 290-room lodge is Alibaba’s daring experiment to showcase how good expertise can rework the hospitality expertise. 

This weblog delves into Alibaba’s improvements in Flyzoo that can rework the hospitality trade. We’ll discover their enterprise technique, how such developments are reshaping visitor experiences and operational effectivity in inns and analyze the implementation and affect of those applied sciences within the hospitality trade. 

FlyZoo’s Enterprise Technique 

Alibaba’s foray into the hospitality trade with FlyZoo Lodge is a part of the firm’s broader technique of creating a presence throughout numerous sectors, using superior expertise to disrupt conventional trade fashions. FlyZoo’s enterprise technique is grounded in using cutting- edge expertise corresponding to AI, machine studying and robots to raise the visitor expertise and enhance operational effectivity. The lodge leverages its AI-driven mannequin to offer seamless check-in and check-out experiences and tailor-made companies, considerably enhancing personalization. This aligns with the rising shopper want for hyper-personalized experiences, nevertheless, with a sure twist because of the minimalization of human contact. 

Though FlyZoo Lodge could be seen as a game-changing innovation by Alibaba, the implications of the firm’s entry into the lodge trade are broad-ranging. It introduces a brand new stage of competitors for conventional inns via its tech-centered mannequin, difficult them to up their sport in incorporating expertise. Nonetheless, it additionally probably opens up collaboration alternatives, as conventional inns might leverage Alibaba’s expertise to reinforce their very own operations and companies. Basically, the technique for this lodge is not like the everyday ideas behind any tech-driven lodge; it was a daring transfer to determine a presence within the sector whereas flaunting its forward-technology to different companies to open extra doorways within the hospitality trade. 

This hyperlinks again to Fliggy, Alibaba’s on-line journey platform, because it performs an important position on this mannequin. It serves as an all-in-one on-line journey resolution that connects customers to a number of journey companies, together with lodge reservations. FlyZoo’s integration with Fliggy signifies that prospects staying at FlyZoo Lodge can count on a uniform digital expertise earlier than, throughout and after their journey. This technique extremely revolves across the buyer journey, which focuses on offering a seamless, constant expertise in any respect touchpoints. Within the case of FlyZoo Lodge and Fliggy, this interprets right into a digitally built-in journey, enabling friends to plan and handle all elements of their journey with nice simplicity and comfort. It could be demonstrated as such:

Contactless Hospitality 

The ‘Contactless Hospitality’ technique positions the lodge as a pioneer in leveraging expertise that rework conventional operations and set new service requirements within the sector. The mixing of AI, automated processes and facial recognition expertise permits providing a easy, contactless visitor expertise. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has definitely accelerated the adoption of contactless applied sciences in hospitality, and it’s predictably right here to remain. Contactless applied sciences enable inns to streamline their companies and automate repetitive duties, liberating up employees to give attention to extra strategic duties and considerably enhances operational effectivity. 

Moreover, it additionally caters to the evolving expectations of contemporary vacationers, who search seamless, on the spot and digital-friendly companies. That is generally current in the principle buyer base in China’s market: Chinese language home vacationers. In keeping with “China’s Tourism Sector Prospects in 2023-24” by China Briefing, within the first half of 2023 home tourism income in China reached 2.3 trillion RMB, a big improve of 1.12 trillion RMB in comparison with the earlier 12 months. (Interesse, 2023) 

Chinese language vacationers, regarded because the world’s most tech-savvy vacationers, effortlessly merge progressive applied sciences into their life-style. They more and more demand immersive experiences supplied by digital and augmented actuality (VR/AR) in addition to contactless companies and digital funds. Due to this fact, contactless expertise is changing into more and more important to the lodge trade, notably within the technologically superior Chinese language market, which strategically aligns with Flyzoo’s objectives. 

Emphasis on Cell-friendly Providers 

Comparable to the earlier part, mobile-friendly companies are central to FlyZoo’s technique, marking its profound understanding of the tech-savvy buyer base. Emphasizing cellular expertise permits Flyzoo to ship handy and on the spot interactions, decreasing wait instances considerably and rising buyer satisfaction. Moreover, the cellular app can provide personalised suggestions based mostly on person preferences and behaviors, attaining a sure diploma of personalization. Company can additionally use the app to speak with employees or AI-powered assistants, catering to their queries and desires extra effectively. 

Enjoyable Truth: 80 % of vacationers stated they’d obtain a lodge app that would enable them to examine in, take a look at and get all details about the lodge. (Survey: Vacationers Need Contactless Lodge Experiences, 2020) 

One notable instance of the cellular app’s improvements at FlyZoo is obvious throughout the lodge’s restaurant. After friends place their meals orders by way of the app, tall, capsule-shaped robots ship their meals. In the meantime at a separate bar, a big robotic arm concurrently mixes their cocktails. Moreover, FlyZoo’s cellular app isn’t solely a software for transactional companies but in addition a platform for participating content material. The app affords interactive guides, digital excursions and informative content material concerning the lodge and its environment, successfully functioning as a digital concierge.

Challenges and Alternatives 

Analyzing FlyZoo’s tech-driven hospitality mannequin, it is evident that there are a number of challenges alongside the alternatives it presents. 

One potential problem may very well be the lack of a private contact or discount in human interplay, typically an important a part of customer support in hospitality. A examine by Oracle highlights customers’ blended emotions about AI in hospitality, indicating that whereas many admire the comfort of AI, important shopper segments worth human contact. The hospitality trade revolves round private service, and overuse of expertise may alienate friends who worth this facet. Secondly, there is a danger of over-reliance on expertise. Any technical problem or outage might have an effect on a number of companies concurrently, probably resulting in visitor dissatisfaction. 

One other problem pertains to cybersecurity dangers. Facial recognition and data-driven personalization might probably compromise friends’ privateness if correct safety measures aren’t carried out. 

Regardless of these challenges, FlyZoo’s tech-oriented method opens up a number of new potentialities within the trade. The technique holds immense scalability, enabling properties to handle operations and visitor relations extra effectively as they develop. As soon as the mannequin is perfected, it may be replicated throughout a number of places with relative ease. The mannequin additionally permits for a wealth of information assortment, enabling continuous enchancment of visitor experiences based mostly on exact insights quite than instinct. 

In the long run, a query nonetheless stays: would you need to see extra inns like Flyzoo? 

This weblog put up tied for Second Place within the Spring 2024 HFTP/MS World Hospitality Enterprise Graduate Pupil Weblog Competitors introduced by the HFTP Basis. Contributors are college students collaborating within the Grasp of Science in World Hospitality Enterprise, a partnership between the Conrad N. Hilton School of World Hospitality Management on the College of Houston, the Faculty of Lodge and Tourism Administration at Hong Kong Polytechnic College and EHL. The weblog posts that obtained the highest scores will probably be revealed on HFTP Join. Study extra at HFTP Information.

In regards to the Writer

Hadeel Fkeeh is a graduate scholar of the Grasp in World Hospitality Enterprise, a partnership between three world-leading hospitality administration colleges over three continents: EHL Hospitality Enterprise Faculty, The Hong Kong Polytechnic College, and the College of Houston. She holds a bachelor’s diploma in Occasion Administration from the College of Hospitality and Tourism, graduated from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz College. She has previous experiences in hospitality starting from occasions administration within the Saudi equestrian membership, Crimson Sea Worldwide Movie Pageant, Jeddah season and extra. 

References 

• Interesse, G. (2023, August 22). China’s tourism in 2023: Outlook, traits, and alternatives. China Briefing. https://www.china-briefing.com/information/chinas-tourism-in-2023-outlook-trends-and-opportunities/ 

• Idiot, M. (2019, March 23). Inside Alibaba’s new futuristic lodge. Nasdaq. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/inside-alibabas-new-futuristic-hotel-2019-03-23 

• Reuters. (2019, January 22). Inside Alibaba’s new lodge in China that appears like a spaceship and is staffed by robotic bartenders. Enterprise Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/r-at-alibabas-futuristic-hotel-robots- deliver-towels-and-mix-cocktails-2019-1 

• Sarmah, H. (2022, September 29). Contactless hospitality options are necessary, even after COVID. eZee Absolute. https://www.ezeeabsolute.com/weblog/contactless- hospitality/?utm_source=HotelBusinessStrategy&utm_medium=weblog&utm_campaign=eAblog 

• Survey: Vacationers need contactless lodge experiences. (2020, August 18). Lodge Administration. https://www.hotelmanagement.web/tech/survey-travelers-want-contactless-hotel-experiences 

• Zhu, J., Wang, Y. W., & Cheng, M. (2021). Digital transformation within the hospitality trade. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.web/publication/355272543_Digital_Transformation_in_the_Hospitality_Industry

This text initially appeared on HFTP.