Opened just over a year ago, the ARIA Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip, may be the most technologically advanced hotel ever built: its’ mix of gadgets and cutting-edge technology blends centralised convenience with personalised luxury and offers a glimpse of what hotels will feel like in the future.

The hotel’s camera surveillance system uses facial recognition software to tell who’s coming and going, and to keep an eye on VIPs to be sure and whisk them to the front of a line or shower them with special treatment.

Not only your face gets recognised, but also your mobile device: once the guest’s phone is registered with the Aria, hotel attractions could push personalised notifications to the user depending on who they are and where they are standing at any given moment. Are you a known roulette player? The resort can let you know about empty player chairs at the roulette tables. Do you enjoy seafood and standing near the dining area? They can send you a digital coupon for $5 off your seafood meal.

All dining facilities feature digital menus and the data-hub tracks how many people access the menus, whet they access and what they order. The hotel’s food mavens can calculate how many people read the menu compared to how many eat in the restaurant, track what items are selling, and easily adjust menu selections and prices on the fly.

ARIA features an extensive in-room automation in each of the hotel’s 4004 guest rooms. When a guest enters a room, curtains automatically open, music plays, the TV activates and climate controls bring the room to a preset temperature. All room features can be manipulated with a touchscreen remote control and soon with an  iPad app.

Over the next two years, biometric smartphones will drive further features at the ARIA resort.

“We want to get to the point where we can encode your cellphone so you can use it as your credit card, you room key and your Player’s Club card,” says John Bollen, CityCenter’s vice president of technology. “Guests would open their door or pay for a product or service with a specially developed app.”

And since every inch of the Aria is covered by what the hotel calls a “heat-sensitive” Wi-Fi network, phones are less likely to find themselves in dead spots.

by Olga Titarenko