I EXIST. AND YOU? Humans and humanoids in the tourism work of the future

It is almost as tall as we are. It moves, listens, speaks. And at TTG Travel Experience it will be one of the speakers. AssoParchi is bringing a state-of-the-art humanoid robot to the MAIN ARENA, connected to an artificial intelligence system that enables it to intervene live and answer questions from the audience.
The discussion brings together the players in the supply chain and the students of hotel and tourism institutes who are preparing to enter it. Among the key players in this market, amusement parks represent an interesting testing ground: here, a humanoid robot can indeed take on a dual function, becoming an integral part of the experience and the setting offered to the public while, at the same time, performing genuine operational tasks. The sector has coexisted for seventy years with automata that move, speak and play a role, but today's transformation is set to have concrete implications, especially in light of the far-from-marginal scale of the industry. Italy is home to more than 180 theme, water and wildlife parks and more than 250 adventure parks, drawing 21.1 million visitors and employing over 25,000 seasonal workers every year.
The aim is therefore to move beyond fears and stereotypes, in order to understand which tasks technology will absorb and which it will instead make more necessary, and how the training pathways aimed at new generations will need to evolve. And what if it were precisely the encounter with increasingly advanced technologies that reminded us of what makes us unique? Empathy, imagination, sensitivity, responsibility and the ability to forge connections are qualities destined to acquire even greater value. Perhaps it is technology that resembles us that will succeed in pushing us further forward together and in helping us rediscover just how profoundly human we can still become