This article was originally published on Autodesk's Line//Shape//Space publication as "Service With a Smile: Why Hotels of the Future Are High-Touch, Not High-Tech."

Renaissance?New?York?Midtown?Hotel?digital?wall. Image Courtesy of Renaissance

This article was originally published on Autodesk's Line//Shape//Space publication as "Service With a Smile: Why Hotels of the Future Are High-Touch, Not High-Tech."Although it opened in 2011, YOTEL New York feels like it belongs in 2084, the same year the science-fiction film Total Recall is set. Quintessentially futuristic, the original cult classic starring Arnold Schwarzenegger features robotic police officers, instant manicures, hovering cars, implanted memories, and skin-embedded cellphones. Its protagonist, Douglas Quaid, is a construction worker obsessed with vacationing on Mars.One could easily imagine Quaid staying at a Martian outpost of YOTEL, a ?minimal-service? hotel modeled after Japanese capsule hotels, which provide a large number of extremely small modular guest rooms for travelers willing to forgo all the services of a conventional hotel in exchange for convenient, affordable accommodations. These kinds of automated-service hotels may be a trend into the 2020s, but are they really hotels of the future"Located in Hell?s Kitchen near Times Square, YOTEL?s flagship property has 669 ?cabins? spread across 60 floors, each cabin with a futon-style bed occupying most of its sca...