Around 100 hospitality and tech experts have gathered at The Spark Innovation Sphere Summit at Les Roches Global Hospitality Education’s campus nested in the Swiss Alps to explore “The Impact of New Technologies on Traditional Hospitality”.
While travel and hospitality will always be essentially a ‘people’ thing, the industry is continually on a quest for innovation. During the event, which took place last month, speakers from the hospitality and tech industries shared insights and discussed how technologies such as AI, robotics, VR, holograms, Web3 and others are changing the hospitality industry, especially to enhance customer experience and revenue.
For Pablo Garcia, Director of Spark at Les Roches Crans-Montana, the key highlights of the Summit were:
- “Technology is here and there is no way back, we need to be educated around it, embrace it and lead it. It is a culture we need to foster among hospitality students.
- The purpose of innovation is not just about technology, it is about making life easier for employees and customers.
- Innovation and sustainability go together. We need innovation and innovators to create solutions to support sustainable development.
- Technology will not replace human beings; it will enhance their added value. Innovation is also a process innate to humans.
- Covid-19 has changed our society. We live now in a new normality with hybrid reality and possibilities. Ever-changing business environments are part of this reality. No matter what the type of industry it is, all companies need to re-think how to deliver the best customer experience.”
Susana Garrido, Director of Spark Marbella, recommended an “open innovation and a co-creation approach in which hospitality players have to learn to attract and retain talents to design solutions that ignite change, and to choose only those innovative approaches that will be valuable to all stakeholders, avoiding technology just for the sake of technology.”
Meanwhile, Les Roches CEO Carlos Díez de La Lastra called for “a collaboration between industry, education and public institutions, private actors and start-ups which is key to creating a strong eco-system looking at adding value to businesses, employees and customers alike.”
With Spark, Les Roches has established a worldwide innovation platform to endorse hospitality invention which encompasses both pre-incubation and incubation solutions for entrepreneurs that are delivering revolutionary ideas to the hospitality and tourism sector. Spark empowers learners, graduates and corporate allies to design and implement novel hospitality solutions in on-campus living laboratories.
