At ITB, the world’s largest travel exhibition and convention, Professor Ian Yeoman provided a keynote about the future of hospitality, technology and labour. Ian’s provocative presentation envisioned a series of scenarios including,
Scenario 1: Robbie the Chef represents a world without human chefs, where production robots run the kitchen.
Scenario 2: West World Holiday Park portrays a popular tourist attraction, offering indulgent experiences shaped by advanced robots.
Scenario 3: Weekends Only is a scenario about tourism businesses’ constant struggle for labour, resulting in a smaller but more professional industry.
Scenario 4: The Day We Ran Out of Chefs depicts the situation when tourism and hospitality become unsustainable because of labour shortages.
These scenarios became the basis of discussion with a panel of thought leaders, including:
Professor Alex Schmidt, The Hague Hotel School
Christian Mueller, Chief Product Officer at Onsai
Ron Sandel, General Manager at HotelTonight and Hotels at Airbnb
Vanessa Borkman, SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences
In the words of Professor Alex Schmidt, “The verdict? Technology isn’t replacing hospitality—it’s redefining it. Businesses must embrace automation & AI to keep up with productivity demands, sustainability goals, and shifting demographics”.
You can listen to Professor Yeoman’s keynote via the following link: Let’s take the Robot out of the Human