Automation And Its Relevance To Hospitality

BY S Kannan

Opinionated

A profession can change in scope and character in a short span of time and be entirely different from the one entered upon. The future of an industry depends upon the economic, social, political, scientific and technological changes that are taking place in the universe. The hotel industry is no exception to this change.

For a hotel to remain static is actually for it to deteriorate. The best example is the famous Ritz in New York which was one of the famous hotels of its time. It had become a landmark and hallmark of service but 40 years after its opening it became obsolete and had to be torn down as it did not keep pace with the changing needs of time.

Thus, the industry has to keep up with the changing tunes of the market trends and move accordingly. In the present context, the global hospitality industry is in the throes of conundrum of change, which was hitherto not experienced earlier. This change will probably continue for the next coming decades and will set up a tone for the industry in the years to come. Everyone is aware of the tremendous growth which tourism - international, regional and domestic - has evinced during the last four decades.

Worldwide tourism has increased annually about nine per cent. Worldwide education leading to greater enlightenment and to increased earnings by individuals, economic growth of tourist producing nations; medical sciences progress leading to longer retirement periods; improved instantaneous worldwide communications, governmental finance particularly in the field of research and infrastructure for transportation, all these factors lead to the growth of modern tourism which will lead to comprehensive growth of the hospitality industry across the globe.

Automation is already making itself felt in the hotel industry especially by eliminating lower level jobs, which traditionally required people with little education and few skills. The industry has to retain the personal service and hospitality of business while automating everything possible in different spheres of its operation.

Automation and mass production are coming to the back of the house operation. The preparation of food production and service, laundry, housekeeping and maintenance of up-to-date records etc all will be analysed and automated. Efforts are being made to reduce the manpower requirements by changing the guest rooms and other public rooms. Mechanical and electronic devices will replace human efforts.

Automation, elevators, electronic registration systems, conveyor belt system for dishes and baggage and many other innovations are eliminating the human element and improving service. In fact, the guests will accept better and more accurate service rendered by the automation. There is however, a limit to which a service industry can automate because guest service is such that it can be performed only by service employees. In addition to above, hotels need a considerable amount of information for guidance to operations. They have never been able to exploit their hotel market.

The ‘guest history’ system is outdated owing to economic reasons. Today a hotel utilising sophisticated data processing would have all the potential of a comprehensive guest history system at no actual cost. In this system the file would be kept up to the minute and accurate as a by-product of other operation.

For example, in the restaurant, if the creation of restaurant check is designed to record automatically all the data in the system, then there will be same data in the system and that on the check. Data processing is simple concept. A fully integrated sophisticated data processing system will perform automatically all accounting and control functions.

Annual statement, income tax returns, the issue of cheques, accounts receivable statements etc can be fully automatic. The economics of the hotel industry and the introduction of chains will need a central point where a computer will record all the affairs of the individual units and will direct the operations.

Change in any sphere of the universe or in any branch of human activity will have bearing on the hospitality industry as a whole. It is a type of business in which techniques and ideas, modes and methods of operation undergo continual alteration, mostly for the better.

(The author is senior, lecturer at the Institute of Hotel Management, Bangalore. As told to Lakshman V)