16 Hospitality and personal services

Human services such as hotels, restaurants, and body care (hair care, massage, etc.) employ many people: think of students and early-career actors who work restaurant jobs. Correspondingly, a significant portion of discretionary spending and time are devoted to these activities. But how is it possible to connect this with physics? Some aspects overlap with other applications of physics: hotels are part of the built environment discussed in another category, requiring ventilation, lighting, plumbing, etc. Restaurants employ physical methods for food production, albeit at a much larger scale. How can we discover ways in which physics connects with aspects that are defining components of these human services?

One way is to model these as systems that require fairly complex coordination of inputs and outputs: raw food coming into a restaurant or a banquet hall is prepared for timely delivery to many (perhaps hundreds of) guests. Physics can model and guide such flows. Are there more tangible forms that physics can take in this category? Since hospitality and personal services all connect to a significant degree with providing physical comfort, this is a domain subject to physics-assisted design. How do we take the ordinary “things for daily living” like bed linens and push them to extraordinary quality? How do we accommodate guests with special needs? How can safe and effective services be provided to homeless or refugee populations?

How do we conceptualize giving people special experiences – such as spas or unusual dining - and use physical instruments to assist with this kind of service? The idea of special experiences rises to a new level in the context of resorts, cruise ships, and even wilderness campgrounds, where provisioning for human security, comfort, and engagement can require more extensive measures.

Another aspect of design concerns the tools that hospitality and personal care staff use. Hair stylists, for example, concern themselves with repetitive motion disorder from the continuous use of scissors and other implements, while good lighting and mirrors are essential components of their workplace.

The domains of hospitality and personal services overlap with education and health care when we include childcare and eldercare. We can also consider pet care services. While these are much different populations, they all reflect the fact that the work expectations of contemporary society often limit the ability of families to take on these care roles by themselves. What opportunities exist to enhance the service to these clients using new devices and processes? And finally, thinking of busy adults, we can imagine ways that robotics and automation can bring to ordinary households some of the personal services that are by provided to the wealthy by in-the-home staff.