The Installation
Astral Hotels has installed a check-in kiosk with a life-sized holographic avatar at its Queen of Sheba Hotel in Eilat. The avatar guides guests through check-in, dispenses physical room key cards and answers questions about hotel amenities, restaurants and nearby attractions. The developer is EyeFeelIt, an Israeli technology company. Jerusalem Post reported the installation.
How an Arrival Runs
A guest scans a QR code the avatar displays, completes the required steps on a personal smartphone and collects a key card from the kiosk when the transaction finishes. The phone carries the administrative work, and the guest enters personal information on a personal device. Astral gains an automated arrival without issuing mobile keys.
The kiosk completes that step with no front desk employee present, at any hour it is running.
Why the Arrival Step Sets the Inventory
A room sold in a morning, afternoon or evening block turns over more than once in a day. Each turnover carries its own arrival step, and each arrival step carries staffing. An operator that sells a 6AM to 12PM slot and a 12PM to 6PM slot staffs two arrivals for one room.
The concierge function gives the kiosk work after the arrival rush ends. Guests ask it about amenities and local recommendations through the day, which is the window a day-use block sits in.
What Astral and EyeFeelIt Said
Lior Berneman-Zvulun, vice president of marketing and digital at Astral Hotels, described the installation as a first step in the group's effort to bring new technology into the guest experience. Astral will evaluate the Queen of Sheba deployment before deciding whether to extend it to other properties. Sharon Birnbaum, chief executive of EyeFeelIt, said the company designed the avatar to be more than a transaction point, with the stated goal of an around-the-clock interface between the guest and the hotel.
The Earlier Deployment Adds a Human Backup
Nordic operator CIC Hospitality introduced an AI-powered holographic front desk at the Aiden by Best Western Lolland in Denmark in late 2024, developed with Holoconnects, RAVATAR and Mews. It checks guests in and out, generates room keys, books additional rooms, takes restaurant and spa reservations and answers questions.
When the avatar cannot complete a request, the guest reaches a CIC Hospitality employee in Oslo who appears in the same display and assists remotely. Holoconnects says the wider CIC rollout has reached 30 hotels in Scandinavia. A remote agent on a shared rota covers the block windows an on-site desk would staff.
The Open Questions
Astral and EyeFeelIt have not published which property-management and locking systems support the installation, how the system authenticates guests, or what happens when it cannot complete a check-in. The report does not specify the languages the avatar supports, or whether a guest can reach a live employee through the kiosk.
Vendors in the Category
Mews, Virdee, Ariane Systems, Stayntouch and Canary Technologies offer different combinations of mobile registration, self-service kiosks, identity and payment collection, room-key issuance and property-system integration. Canary moves the process onto the guest's phone without additional lobby hardware.
The differences that separate these systems are property-management-system integration, identity verification, payment handling, key encoding, multilingual support, and the transfer of a stalled interaction to an employee without the guest starting over.
What to Measure
Adoption rate, transaction-completion time, abandoned sessions, employee interventions, key-card failures and guest satisfaction. Track whether guests return to the avatar for concierge information, and whether its recommendations generate restaurant, spa or activity bookings. Clear on-screen instructions, multiple interaction methods and an obvious route to human assistance serve guests with hearing, speech or visual impairments.
For an operator selling rooms by the block, the arrival step decides whether a 6AM to 12PM slot is saleable.