Will hotels protect their manaakitanga in an AI world?
As global hotel chains increasingly use AI to reduce service costs, how can New Zealand’s hospitality industry protect manaakitanga from being eroded?
AUT Senior Lecturer Pola Wang raised this question with Sunday Star-Times reporter Kevin Norquay, as part of his recent article on AI tourism (paywalled).
"If the global brand introduces a technology, the New Zealand property often has to move with it," Dr Wang said.
"So the risk to ‘Kiwi hospitality' is not just whether New Zealand managers like AI.”
It is how much local control we retain when the technology shaping hospitality is increasingly determined by global systems, she said.
The big issue is what kind of hospitality industry we want to have. It is not whether AI is coming.
"It is coming. The question is, what part of ourselves we are willing to give up in order to keep up."
Read the full feature article on AI in the hospitality and tourism industry online in The Press (paywalled).
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