Nordic Hotel Operator Evaluating Transparent LCD-Driven AI Avatars To Handle Check-ins And Guest Questions

December 30, 2024 by Dave Haynes

A hotel operator in Scandinavia is evaluating one of those life-sized transparent LCD display systems and an AI-driven avatar to check in guests when no front desk staff is around to process registration and hand over room access cards.

The AI greeter was first launched last month at the Aiden by Best Western Lolland hotel in Denmark.

The set-up, based around a big LCD display unit fro the Dutch firm Holoconnects, is tied in with the cloud-based hospitality management system Mews and RAVATAR’s AI avatar platform.

CIC Hospitality, a hotel operator in the Nordics region, has 13 Aiden by Best Western hotels in its portfolio. This system uses “real-time lifelike AI digital humans” to handle tasks like helping hotel guests check in or out, generating room key, booking additional rooms, making dinner or spa reservations and answering questions.

From PR:

The AI-powered holographic avatar, developed together with RAVATAR AI Avatar Platform, engages with guests in real-time through natural, human-like conversations while being operated inside a Holoconnects’ Holobox, which creates a lifesize and lifelike, immersive experience through a 4K high-resolution 3D holographic visualization of a person, product or logo. The front desk AI avatar is integrated with Mews to handle hotel bookings and check-in. As a software leader in hospitality, Mews helps hoteliers manage their operations, using automation to boost revenue and deliver remarkable guest experiences. The partnership between CIC Hospitality, Holoconnects, Mews and RAVATAR enables hotel visitors to check in and out by talking to the avatar and receive instant answers to frequently asked questions.

“This launch underscores CIC Hospitality’s commitment to leveraging innovative technology to transform guest experiences. We are excited to collaborate with Holoconnects and Mews to explore how cutting-edge solutions like this holographic front desk avatar can enhance the hospitality landscape,” says Matthias Tanski, CEO of CIC Hospitality.

CIC Hospitality, Holoconnects, Mews and RAVATAR will use the launch to gather feedback from visitors and industry professionals and find areas for improvement. Guests can use the live connection and speak live immediately with a lifesize, 4K high-resolution 3D hologram of a CIC Hospitality employee (located in Oslo) should the holographic avatar fail to answer their questions or check-in as needed. The feedback from the launch will help to increase the feature set, reduce response times, and improve the user experience, reflecting CIC Hospitality’s ability to be an early mover with technologies that integrate human-centric and automated experiences.

“The launch of a virtual avatar greeter is an exciting new step forward for Holoconnects and the hospitality sector as a whole. We believe it will ultimately elevate and improve the guest experience and overall hotel customer satisfaction,” says Holoconnects co-founder and CEO André Smith. “Our partnership with Mews, CIC Hospitality and RAVATAR has the potential to change the face of modern hotels. We plan to use this first deployment to learn as much as possible and work with Mews to make the front desk virtual avatar greeter and check-in experience better and more helpful.”

Holoconnects’ holographic technology creates immersive experiences and has broad applications in industries including hospitality, travel, healthcare, retail, entertainment, communications, events, education, advertising, and more. Holoconnects continues to expand its product offerings and enter new market sectors. All Holoconnects products—the Holobox, Holobox Mini, and Hologrid—provide a 3D holographic visualization of a person, product, or logo, transforming communication by creating immersive and interactive experiences that deliver unparalleled engagement and impact.

“At Mews, we are dedicated to building the right solutions that provide remarkable experiences for guests, no matter where they stay. This revolutionary front-desk avatar, in collaboration with Holoconnects, has the potential to transform the hotel reception experience as we know it,” adds Matt Welle, CEO of Mews.   

Holoconnects has also outfitted a building operator in Amsterdam with a virtual greeter, though in that case a live host is on camera from a remote site.

I’m not a fan of the dead-eyed millennial virtual staffer here, but I also know I am not the target market. As the little robot on the check-in counter strongly hints, this is at least somewhat about bling as it is about streamlining the guest experience and lowering staffing costs. I do think this can have a role and that AI capabilities like real-time language translation are helpful. While English is common across Europe, there are likely lots of cases where the travelers checking in don”t have a shared language with the hotel staff.

Hat tip to Holoconnects for powder-coating this unit in black. These enclosures tend to look like pre-fab white shower stalls for homes, so altering the look so it blends in a bit more to the surroundings makes sense. These units are freaking expensive, but virtual staffers don’t call in sick or take vacations, happily work 24/7 and are know-it-alls who could theoretically field questions in Tagalog as easily as they could in Danish. Even if the units cost, I dunno, $60,000 and then have month subscription and support costs, they’re still going to be far less cost than three desk staff covering 8-hour shifts every day.

Evergreen reminder that these things are in no way holograms. They’re just 2D transparent LCDs that use either clever lighting and chroma key techniques for live video capture, or design in shadows to things like avatars to create the illusion of depth.

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