Introducing ‘Pepper’, receptionist 4.0

Robotics and artificial intelligence are the foundations of the ongoing 4.0 revolution that is transforming the economy, including the tourism industry: the now famous Henn-na hotel in Japan was the first one in the world with robot staff, while Hilton and Marriott are experimenting with robots at the reception in Europe and in the United States of America.
And in Italy? The first research project of this kind was promoted by the Department of Management at Ca’ Foscari in collaboration with the CISET (International Centre of Studies on the Tourism Economy) established by Ca’ Foscari and the Veneto region.
Jampaa, an innovative digital service provider, has created Pepper for Parcs Hotels, a robot working as a receptionist and later as part of banqueting & events.

This project will be introduced on November 29th in Florence as part of the BTO2017-Buy Tourism Online, the flagship event in Italy on tourism and innovation.
Pepper will be invited to share its new knowhow and will interact with the audience at the “Artificial intelligence in tourism: what do humans and humanoids think” pannel which will include Federica Montaguti from the CISET, Gianluca Marchetti from Google Italy and Maurizio Faroldi from WH Hotel.

“In the hotel industry, repetitive work with automation potential and work requiring information and interaction coexit. THe project will evaluate the internal processes of the hotel prior to and after Pepper to understand how efficient its participation may be, including its perceived value from the client’s perspective” said Michele Tamma, project coordinator from the Department of Management. “With the CISET we will understand how resources - and especially human resources - may be re-allocated thanks to the automation to more complex and higher valued tasks”.

“This innovative initiative will develop our skills on artificial intelligence and machine learning, and will let us understand up to which point a humanoid may understand the tasks currently carried out by human resources”, added Luca Vescovi, the head of the experiment and Chief Technology Officer at Jampaa.it.

The project is part of the collaboration on innovation and tourism between the Department of Management and the CISET, like the new professional Master’s programme in Data Science for Travel, Tourism and Culture (with Jampaa.it as a sponsor) which was just presented at the Scientific Campus.