HotelSimu: the Hotel Simulator for Scientific Research
Machine learning and optimization
in tourism and hospitality
In these years we are witnessing disruptive progress in machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics and service automation.
LION-based tools are entering into all parts of the travel, tourism and hospitality industries.
They come in the form of automated or semi-automated hotel management systems, in-room digital assistants, robot concierges, robots guides, chatbots, etc.
Machine learning
and intelligent optimization provide huge opportunities to travel, tourism and hospitality companies to improve their operations and productivity,
deliver consistent product quality and therefore improve profitability.
At the same time, they raise challenging issues like the standardisation and commodification of hospitality services, possible dehumanisation,
substitution of employees by robots and artificial intelligence.
Our research aims at bridging the gap between the theoretical and practical aspects of machine learning and intelligent optimization
applied to the tourism and hospitality industry,
on both strategic and operational level.
As part of this effort we are developing simulation-based optimization tools for hotel management and measuring the improvement
in profitability that can be obtained by LION techniques in realistic contexts.
The recent LIONbook contains the theoretical foundations of our hotel simulator.
Roberto Battiti, director of LIONlab for prescriptive analytics
