Evaluating robots for hotels

The most prominent problems that hospitality faces today are the personnel shortages and high staff turnover. As a result of this, many companies have started implementing robots to take over tasks, mainly at receptions and in restaurants. These new developments have sprouted a large stream of research on how robots may influence the world of hospitality. Looking at the staff shortages that we face, it is not longer the question if but rather how these robots will change operations. At the Hotelschool The Hague, we have an actual hotel that gives us the opportunity to test these available robots and evaluate them by looking at how guests and staff respond to them. These findings can then be used as input for future robot developments and to adjust the human-robot interactions in such a way that the guests, employees and robots benefit form it.