Industry News Premier Hospitality

World-Leading Hospitality School Employs IPsoft’s Amelia to Transform Student Experience

Aspire Executive Lounges, Swissport's global airport hospitality brand, has joined the British Institute of Hospitality, the world’s leading and award-winning membership body for hospitality professionals. Aspire Executive Lounges becomes the first business partner from the airport lounge hospitality sector to join the Institute of Hospitality. Aspire Executive Lounges, the fast-growing Swiss brand in the airport hospitality business, has joined the British Institute of Hospitality (IoH), the world’s leading membership body for professionals working and studying in the hospitality leisure and tourism industry. Aspire Executive Lounges is the first business from the airport lounge sector to become a member of IoH. The collaboration will foster an exchange of expertise and insights: IoH will benefit from Aspire's expertise in airport hospitality, while Aspire, by sharing its wealth of experience with IoH members, can extend its professional network to the hotel and catering sectors and hospitality management schools. “Our vision for Aspire Executive Lounges is clear and simple: We want to deliver a guest experience that is similar to what our guests are used to from their preferred hotels, meeting the needs and exceeding the expectations of today’s travelers,” says David Collyer, Global Vice President of Executive Lounges at Swissport International AG. “We strive to deliver an unparalleled experience and set a benchmark that transcends our industry, redefining excellence across the hospitality sector. The Institute of Hospitality is a great network to exchange insights and experiences, and to learn from others in the hospitality sector, which will help us bring our vision to life.” Robert Richardson, CEO of the Institute of Hospitality: “Our aspiration at the Institute of Hospitality has been to develop and grow our membership, the number of countries we operate in, and the number of hospitality sectors represented within our organization. With that in mind, it is a natural partnership for us to welcome Aspire into our family, and to learn from their teams, who serve travelers with passion and dedication. As two organizations with similar values, we look forward to collaborating in promoting high levels of excellence within our profession.” With over 30 years of experience, Aspire Executive Lounges is Europe’s largest brand in the airport lounges sector. In 2023, Swissport welcomed more than five million customers worldwide at over 69 lounges in 20 countries. The airport hospitality brand recently opened new lounges at Toronto City Airport in Canada, and Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in Finland. Aspire Executive Lounges recently created a new lounge concept in partnership with the airline alliance oneworld. The first oneworld branded lounge was launched at Incheon Airport in Seoul, Korea, in December 2023. Aspire Executive Lounges is owned by Swissport International AG, the global leader in aviation services, serving airlines at 286 airports in 44 countries across 6 continents
Written by Amy

Her exceptional service has made Amelia a key part of the students’ curriculum by demonstrating the potential for leading-edge digital assistants in hospitality

IPsoft, the leader in enterprise artificial intelligence (AI), today announces that École Hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), the world’s most prestigious hospitality management school in Switzerland, is using Amelia as a digital concierge to support staff and students that visit the school.

IPsoft’s Amelia is the market leading digital assistant, recently cited as a Leader in both the Everest Group Intelligent Virtual Assistant Market Report 2019 and The Forrester New Wave™: Standalone Chatbots For IT Operations, Q2 2019. Incorporating advanced artificial intelligence and complex Natural Language Understanding, Amelia can be directed using everyday language to performs basic functions, and is capable of recognizing context switching, intent, users’ emotional state, and more.

Transforming the student experience

At EHL, Amelia is being used to improve the staff and student experience, as well as introduce students to the leading-edge technologies that are transforming and improving the hospitality industry.

At the school, Amelia is providing on-hand IT support by managing guest WiFi access and resetting passwords. With the change in laws that require organizations to know who is connecting to their WiFi, the system required a text to be sent to the user to enable them to connect. This was problematic given that the school welcomes visitors from 145 countries, and not everyone was able to receive those messages and connect. Now, Amelia manages the end-to-end process of verifying and providing all guests with access to the WiFi. Students and all EHL employees can also use Amelia to change their password, interacting with her through an interactive kiosk.

Amelia is also supporting with the student admission process. Previously, EHL had a chat box on the website that enabled students to interact with the admission officers. However, frequently there was no one available to provide an immediate response. Now, Amelia is able to provide 24/7 support to applicants, directly responding to questions relating to extensive admission information or, when she is not able to, sending a message to the officers to notify them to reply.

Innovative technology at the heart of the curriculum

Amelia not only improves students’ experience of EHL, CIO Julia Aymonier believes it plays an important role in their curriculum.

“In many cases, this is our students’ first interaction with a sophisticated digital assistant. Their experience of Amelia helps them understand the potential for and the important role that such leading-edge technologies will play in their future careers in the hospitality industry, which has become in itself a key part of the students’ curriculum. In turn, this makes EHL even more attractive to aspiring industry leaders, as our students know they will leave the school on the pulse of the best and latest customer experiences,” she commented.

“While some people in the industry have understandable concerns about the role of artificial intelligence in replacing jobs, our use of Amelia has shown the massive potential to improve the user experience  – whether that’s of our students today or their future customers. Digital assistants will never replace the human interactions that are fundamental to delivering the superior customer service that our students go on to provide at some of the most prestigious hotels, restaurants and global firms. However, they do present an immense opportunity to improve the customer experience of more mundane tasks, like booking taxis or ordering room service. And we’re helping open our students’ eyes to this potential,” Julia continued.

Cognitive Centre of Excellence

EHL has created a dedicated Centre of Excellence team focused on exploring Amelia’s capabilities, comprised of five permanent and two rotating team members. The team are already exploring other possible applications for Amelia across the new EHL campus that is under construction, including implementations to help improve wait times in the cafeteria.

Chetan Dube, CEO at IPsoft said: “EHL has been a pioneer in exploring ways that Amelia can transform the experience of its students and staff. We are delighted that Amelia has not only provided a valuable business impact for EHL, through its service desk innovations, but that she continues to inspire the next generation of hospitality leaders in how digital assistants can transform customer experience.”

About Amelia

Amelia is the market’s first digital colleague. Since her introduction in 2014, she has gained hundreds of skills across multiple industries. She is modelled on human intelligence, understanding and empathy.

About the author

Amy