“Hi Echo, please book me a table at the Ritz”

If you are new in a business city and are looking for a nice restaurant, get ready to deal with the latest trend in hotel concierge services: a digital concierge, by the name of Echo. You will find a box filled with technology on the desk in your room.

If you need restaurant or other nightlife recommendations and don’t want to go to the hotel lobby to ask the concierge, have a conversation with Echo, Amazon's digital voice-activated personal assistant, stocked with artificial intelligence. Echo (aka Alexa) can answer questions using internet databases as its information source. The assistant can also read books and play music on demand.

According to TravelWeekly, The Echo is beginning to appear in more and more hotel rooms. With the device, hoteliers are attempting both to improve the guest experience and to streamline operations by automating common questions and requests.

The report says that several hotels are experimenting with this digital concierge. In some hotels, the device has proven it is able to, for every 1,000 occupied room nights, automate an average of 240 item/service requests and 700 guest questions about the hotel and surrounding area.

Further reading on travelweekly.com

Image by Amazon