One of the few industries that not only has a permanent global reach while generating income all-year round is the lodging industry. Hotels, motels, hostels and, more recently, AirBnB are staples of today’s standards of living, given how society is more driven towards international travel as years go by. We’ve seen how the most luxurious hotels become complete hubs where their guests can easily fulfill all their necessities, while offering easy access to the surrounding areas via private transport and special offers with the nearby businesses.
Enter the Ki Foundation, a group focused on developing a way to revolutionize the hotel industry as we know it, by introducing a communication hub in the form of the Ki Device, also called “Domo”. Not only do they want to improve the guests’ experience by bringing them the benefits of digital assistants, but to also create a network of rooms, and even entire hotels, that ensures each guest has the best time they can, all while benefitting from the privacy benefits of blockchain.
Steps Of Giants
This type of technology is certainly not new. We have all heard about Amazon’s Echo (or Alexa) and Google Home, smart speakers connected to AI personal assistants that receive voice commands to perform a wide variety of actions, depending on which smart devices are installed in a home or room. From turning on the lights to serving a cup of coffee, these family of speakers have become an icon in home automation and integration of smart home appliances.
However, these devices are entirely marketed towards its use in private spaces: homes, apartments and even offices. But when we think of similar devices being used in places where a large amount of people will be using it, some concerns are raised about the privacy of the information being shared and the adaptability of the system to the preferences of a new user.
The Ki Foundation found a solution to these worrying issues in the form of blockchain. Integrating their device to a private blockchain, they can assure that all the commands, requests and responses are safely encrypted, protected from unauthorized access and tampering. This opens a way for a system to cater to the needs of different guests in a seamless manner, with no information seeping from one to the other, nor being stored in a server where it could be accessed.
Aiming High
As of 2017, the hotel industry reached a market size of over $570 billion worldwide, with the biggest names being renown powerhouses: the Wyndham Hotel Group (8,976 properties in the world), Marriot International (6,542 properties) and Hilton Worldwide (5,405 properties). The constant, year-round popularity of their services, luxurious experiences offered to guests and availability in almost every major city in the worlds makes it a market waiting to be disrupted with new technologies.
But if we were to take a realistic look at the potential of the Ki Foundation, we need to think by rooms instead of buildings, since every room is expected to have a Ki Device installed. By 2015, the total supply of hotel rooms in the U.S. broke the 5 million mark. Aiming low and assuming 10% of these rooms is adapted to the use of a smart speaker, 500.000 million units would be sold and each would work as an individual node in the blockchain, allowing for scalability and fast transaction times, so guests are met with a fast, secure and reliable network of services.
When you think of these numbers and add the integration of transportation, shopping and restaurant services, you start to picture the massive landscape that is encompassed by a service like the one offered by the Ki Foundation, while also getting a perspective on its potential to grow if the guests approve it.
This is an example on how new technologies under the hands of daring developers and entrepreneurs can become essential tools to improve on the traditional models with which we have lived for decades. Now the hardest part for this type of projects is about to start: convincing big names to invest in their product by demonstrating the benefits it could bring in terms of guest satisfaction and, of course, revenue.