INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM, TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY LAW Another good example of an artificial intelligence system increasingly used in the field of tourism is that of robots for face-to-face customer services. Robots, indeed, are gradually infiltrating customer services in the travel industry, avoiding the need for human agents, this especially from the period of the covid-19. Some popular airports and hotels have now employed robots to assist the client in such situations. One good example is that of the robot in London Heathrow airport. This robot guides passengers in terminals. According to a report published by Vero Solutions10, it is expected to replace robots for the checking process by 2030. On the other hand, replacing the human workforce with machines is a trend already underway in various sectors, but in the past two decades, the number of robots in use worldwide has tripled to 2.25 million. However, in tandem with the extremely rapid technological evolution that now affects every sector, these numbers are increasing exponentially, generating disruptive consequences. This is confirmed by a study conducted by Oxford Economics11, a British company specializing in global forecasting studies and quantitative analysis. How Robots Change the World is the title of the report that is alarming workers and others from America to the United Kingdom. In fact, researchers have estimated that by 2030, 20 million manufacturing jobs globally could be in the hands of robots, including 14 million in China alone. In Japan, between 2015 and 2016, has opened the first hotel where robots will be the ones to welcome clients, carry their bags and be their point of contact for any need. Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki has been the worlds’first hotel fully staffed by multilingual robots primarily used for check-in and checkout processing. Another innovative AI solution is Connie, the robot deployed in the hotel Hilton McLean in Virginia. Connie, the robot Concierge in Hilton uses domain knowledge of the IBM Watson AI program and Wayblazer to answer human queries related to hotel features and local attractions while providing recommendations. It uses Natural language processing to understand the sentences when someone talks to him. Furthermore, Connie can move its arms and legs to shoe directions to guests and express different human interactions and fine-tunes its capabilities. It was particularly useful in the covid-19 era to ensure customer safety. 10 The report is available at the link: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/meet-the-robots-that-may-be- -coming-to-an-airport-near-you.html. 11 The report cited is of June 2019 and it is available at the following link: https://resources.oxfordeconomics. com/hubfs/How%20Robots%20Change%20the%20World%20(PDF).pdf?_gl=1*1ddo0md*_ga*MTQ4NzYyN Dc4LjE2NjU0ODUzMzQ.*_ga_GZFMW0F8TH*MTY2NTQ4NTUyOS4xLjAuMTY2NTQ4NTUyOS42M C4wLjA.
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