Alibaba Group unveils its first “Future Hotel”

The China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group has unveiled its new "Flyzoo Hotel” in Hangzhou, China, which will be its first “Future Hotel”. It marks the company's first foray into the Internet of Things sector, with the hotel relying on smart interactive technologies like facial recognition and robots as receptionists. 

The hotel is equipped with an artificial-intelligence management system called the "Tmall Genie”: enabling guests to control indoor temperature and lighting intensity, they can order room service, change television channel and many other things through their voice. 

But it is not just about services, it’s about the whole hotel management system; the CEO Wang Qun told TechNode that the hotel is 1.5 times more efficient than its peers thanks to its upgraded hotel management system capability. 

The new management system’s efficiency will reduce more than half of the labour forces and can potentially enhance the customer experience thanks to the robots that “will be the ultimate assistant for hotel guests who want everything quickly and conveniently at their fingertips”, the GM of Alibaba A.I. Labs Lijuan Chen said. However, FlyZoo still employs humans - to run housekeeping.