Maybe hotels should focus first on the basics, like getting on the cloud and ditching cable TV. But having fun products like robots is, at the very least, good for marketing.
More airline debacles and their resulting luggage delays are almost a guarantee. While a full revamp of the baggage handling system is far away, industry leaders are trying to piece together tech solutions to help in the meantime.
While some of the tech advances Skift featured over the years may not have lived up to expectations yet, others are poised to play an even bigger role in the travel industry in years to come. Check out this list.
In Skift's top stories this week, Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali writes about the blending of work, travel, and personal lives, Ghana's decision to use celebrities to promote tourism emerges as problematic, and the labor shortage in hospitality enhances the need for robots in hotels.
This week, a climate risk technology company has raised more cash to develop its Weather Guarantee product, while Relay plans to put more of its delivery robots into hotels.
Face-to-face meetings and events are returning, but many of the employees who worked in the hospitality industry in 2020 are not around to greet them. Droves who have worked in travel, tourism, hospitality, and events have moved on to other workforce sectors.
The pace and extent of computerization varied in 2025. In countries that permitted it, some corporations automated their employees out of jobs without much hesitation. Workers needed to hone new skills as artificial intelligence threatened their livelihoods while others firms invested in retraining their staffs.
Are there really enough people who want to remote-control a robot and visit places virtually? We're skeptical. But the founder of the startup Propelmee is surprisingly persuasive at the potential uses for such robots.
Forget animatronic robots. But software that replaces repetitive tasks that white-collar workers do in back-offices, tracking devices that can alert when hand sanitizers are empty, and mobility scooters that drive themselves are some of the examples of automation that may be worthwhile.