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WebinarOnline

Tech-enhanced hospitality: Balancing AI-driven efficiency with the human touch in luxury service

  • 09:00–09:45 UK time45 minutes
  • Online, on Zoom, inside ScholardemiaRegister, then join on this page from 08:50. How to join
  • Iis Tussyadiah and Raphael BickConvened by Prof. Eugenia Wickens

How can luxury hotels use AI without losing the judgement, discretion and personal care that guests value?

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About this event

Speaker update, 27 October 2026: Iis Tussyadiah is confirmed as the academic speaker and Raphael Bick, Chief Information Officer of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, as the industry speaker.
Artificial intelligence can support reservations, guest communication, pricing, room allocation, housekeeping and service recovery. Luxury hospitality, however, continues to depend on empathy, professional judgement, cultural understanding and discreet personal care. This webinar examines the operational boundaries between automated tasks, technology that assists employees and interactions that should remain under direct human control. It asks how organisations can improve efficiency without reducing service to a sequence of transactions or weakening the relationships on which guest trust depends.
Panellists will consider employee workload, workplace surveillance, guest privacy, algorithmic bias and responsibility when systems produce errors. The discussion will examine whether automation expands staff capacity for meaningful service or imposes rigid workflows that restrict professional discretion. It will also address the design of escalation routes, the quality of training data and the need for employees and guests to understand when they are interacting with an automated system. Productivity claims will be assessed alongside staff wellbeing and service inclusion.
Participants will learn to evaluate technology investments through a balanced set of operational, human and ethical measures. These include service quality, employee autonomy, accessibility, privacy, reliability and the capacity to correct harmful outcomes. The session will provide questions for determining which decisions require human approval and how governance should be maintained after procurement. Delegates will be equipped to distinguish responsible augmentation from automation introduced primarily to reduce labour costs or project an image of innovation without demonstrable benefit. This framework supports innovation that respects the expertise, security and dignity of hospitality work throughout organisational change.

How to join

This webinar runs on Zoom. You join it here on Scholardemia, where the meeting opens inside the page with the chat, questions and polls beside it. You do not need a Zoom account or a Zoom link.

  1. RegisterFree, with your Scholardemia account.
  2. Come back on the dayThe room opens at 08:50 on Friday 13 November. We email you reminders with the Join button 24 hours and 1 hour before.
  3. Press JoinSign in with the same account. The meeting opens here, with questions, polls and the group chat beside it.

Use an up-to-date Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox. Allow sound when your browser asks, and use headphones if you can.

Featured speakers

All 2 speakers →
IT

Iis Tussyadiah

Professor · University of Surrey

RB

Raphael Bick

Chief Information Officer · Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group

Scholardemia
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Tech-enhanced hospitality: Balancing AI-driven efficiency with the human touch in luxury service

WebinarOnlineSession 3 of 29

How can luxury hotels use AI without losing the judgement, discretion and personal care that guests value?

  • 09:00–09:45 UK time
  • Online, on Zoom, inside Scholardemia · 45 minutesRegister, then join on this page from 08:50. How to join
  • Iis Tussyadiah and Raphael BickConvened by Prof. Eugenia Wickens

About this webinar

Speaker update, 27 October 2026: Iis Tussyadiah is confirmed as the academic speaker and Raphael Bick, Chief Information Officer of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, as the industry speaker.
Artificial intelligence can support reservations, guest communication, pricing, room allocation, housekeeping and service recovery. Luxury hospitality, however, continues to depend on empathy, professional judgement, cultural understanding and discreet personal care. This webinar examines the operational boundaries between automated tasks, technology that assists employees and interactions that should remain under direct human control. It asks how organisations can improve efficiency without reducing service to a sequence of transactions or weakening the relationships on which guest trust depends.
Panellists will consider employee workload, workplace surveillance, guest privacy, algorithmic bias and responsibility when systems produce errors. The discussion will examine whether automation expands staff capacity for meaningful service or imposes rigid workflows that restrict professional discretion. It will also address the design of escalation routes, the quality of training data and the need for employees and guests to understand when they are interacting with an automated system. Productivity claims will be assessed alongside staff wellbeing and service inclusion.
Participants will learn to evaluate technology investments through a balanced set of operational, human and ethical measures. These include service quality, employee autonomy, accessibility, privacy, reliability and the capacity to correct harmful outcomes. The session will provide questions for determining which decisions require human approval and how governance should be maintained after procurement. Delegates will be equipped to distinguish responsible augmentation from automation introduced primarily to reduce labour costs or project an image of innovation without demonstrable benefit. This framework supports innovation that respects the expertise, security and dignity of hospitality work throughout organisational change.

How to join

This webinar runs on Zoom. You join it here on Scholardemia, where the meeting opens inside the page with the chat, questions and polls beside it. You do not need a Zoom account or a Zoom link.

  1. RegisterFree, with your Scholardemia account.
  2. Come back on the dayThe room opens at 08:50 on Friday 13 November. We email you reminders with the Join button 24 hours and 1 hour before.
  3. Press JoinSign in with the same account. The meeting opens here, with questions, polls and the group chat beside it.

Use an up-to-date Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox. Allow sound when your browser asks, and use headphones if you can.

Speakers and convenor

Prof. Iis Tussyadiah

Presenter

University of Surrey

Scholardemia profile

Raphael Bick

Presenter

Chief Information Officer · Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group

Scholardemia profile

Prof. Eugenia Wickens

Convenor

OTS Academy

United Kingdom

Professor Eugenia Wickens edits the Journal On Tourism & Sustainability (JOTS) and the Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Education (JTHE), and chairs Scholardemia webinar sessions. Her research covers tourist experience and typologies, tourism routes and rural development, volunteer tourism, and event and cultural tourism. Formerly Reader in Tourism at Buckinghamshire New University, she has helped plan tourism education in Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Serbia, Greece, Ireland and Turkey.

Scholardemia profileORCIDGoogle Scholar

Organised by Scholardemia.

Committee

Organising Committee

Operational leadership and event delivery team.

Prof. Eugenia Wickens

Convenor

OTS Academy

United Kingdom

Professor Eugenia Wickens edits the Journal On Tourism & Sustainability (JOTS) and the Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Education (JTHE), and chairs Scholardemia webinar sessions. Her research covers tourist experience and typologies, tourism routes and rural development, volunteer tourism, and event and cultural tourism. Formerly Reader in Tourism at Buckinghamshire New University, she has helped plan tourism education in Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Serbia, Greece, Ireland and Turkey.

Scholardemia profileORCIDGoogle Scholar

Scholardemia

Organizer

Event committee

Who’s going

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Photos

  • People at the heart of hospitality technology. Illustrative photograph — Mads Terkelsen / Pexels.

  • Staff judgement within automated workflows — AI-generated editorial illustration.

  • A clear route to human help — AI-generated editorial illustration.

  • Discretion and guest privacy — AI-generated editorial illustration.

  • Accessible service with human judgement — AI-generated editorial illustration.

Next in this series

All 29 sessions
  1. Fri 27 Nov14:00Beyond satisfaction: How can tourism and hospitality genuinely enhance community quality of life?Session 4
  2. Fri 4 Dec09:00Destination marketing in the digital age: From academic theory to global campaign successSession 5
  3. Fri 11 Dec17:00Persuasion in the digital realm: AI, chatbots and the ethics of influencing traveller choices onlineSession 6
  4. Fri 8 Jan09:00Ecotourism in action: Balancing sustainable development, resident perceptions and conservation realitiesSession 7