dr. reza etemad-sajadi
Service Robots and AI: What Impact on the Future of Hospitality
Lionel Saul | March 15, 2022
By Lionel Saul Would you allow a humanoid robot to greet a paying guest at your hotel? Would the hotel guest prefer the ease and convenience of service robots or the warmth and service of a fellow human being? There is no doubt that AI will create both challenges and opportunities for the industry. This article reviews the trajectory and impact of AI in the hospitality industry. Humans and robots working together The question might sound futuristic, yet the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly revolutionizing the business-as-usual model of the hospitality industry. It has the potential to disrupt the custome...
6 Main Ethical Concerns of Service Robots and Human Interaction
Dr Reza Etemad-Sajadi | February 17, 2022
By Dr. Reza Etemad-Sajadi “Service Robots” come with a variety of ethical questions regarding their use. Research in this field can help to find the win-win balance where companies reduce their costs, adapt employee activities and give customers added value with the right use of robot technology. A newcomer in the service sector Around the world, a lot of people have lost their jobs during the pandemic. In parallel, automation, AI, and the usage of robots are becoming more and more frequent. Indeed, the health situation has increased firms’ digitalization and automatization processes. In the past, when automa...
The Relationship Between the Stringency of COVID Lockdown Measures and GDP
Dr Reza Etemad-Sajadi | November 10, 2020
By Dr. Reza Etemad-Sajadi November 5, 2020 - What we have learned from the first COVID-19 wave? Insights into how different European countries reacted to the pandemic and how the diverse coping strategies affected their respective economies in the first half of this year. Interesting lessons to be learnt as we enter into a prolonged period of the pandemic. The world has come to understand that the COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc on the global economy and will continue to do so for some time. The table below shows the annual growth rate of Switzerland’s GDP, which shrank by a record 8.3% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2020....
Restaurants Reopening: An Overview From Lausanne, Switzerland
Beatrice Venturini | June 8, 2020
By Beatrice Venturini & Dr. Reza Etemad-Sajadi On Monday 11th May, restaurants and bars were among the few public establishments in Switzerland allowed to reopen. The move was preceded by lengthy Federal Counsel regulations made available to all restaurateurs setting out the now rather familiar guidelines: 2m distances between tables, maximum 4 people at a table, strict hygiene measures, service staff in masks and required contact details of each customer. Some noise was made about whether the move had come too soon, since initially the Swiss government had suggested reopening around early June. But with the Swiss Germans claiming f...
Could Big Data Help Us Manage the Lockdown Better?
Dr. Reza Etemad-Sajadi | April 6, 2020
Harnessing our smartphones to help track the virus and hence manage the return to life outside. By Dr. Reza Etemad-Sajadi Given that the coronavirus spreads as the population circulates, the only solution in the near term is to impose stay-at-home measures so the number of hospitalizations doesn’t explode, pushing hospital workers and equipment to breaking point. The graphs below show the change of behavior of people in Switzerland during the lockdown period. Source: COVID-19 Community Mobility Report, Google, 29.03.2020 That being said, when a part of the population will have been immunized (i.e. those who have caught the ...
Restaurant Revenue Management Practices: Altering Customer Perceptions
Dr. Reza Etemad-Sajadi | May 10, 2018
By Dr. Reza Etemad-Sajadi Revenue management is all about pricing strategies to allocate the right capacity to the right customer, at the right place, at the right time. Airlines and hotels use such practices, and their customers seem to see the benefits. However, for the restaurant industry, things are different. Based on our research, we found that the majority of revenue management practices in the restaurant business are perceived as unfair (see Table 1). Customers though seem to accept price variations between lunch and dinner, as well as cancellations due to late arrivals. The practice which is perceived to be most unfair is the...
