Trip in Netherlands

In this blog I would like to give some help and advice what places you should visit in Netherlands while you are here in this country. The first what is comes to every people mind is tulips, wind mills but in this blog I hope I can give you a new student friendly perspectives about Holland. But before you start to read my blog you should watch this video about Netherlands. The guy in this video talking about the life in Holland and also talking about how they are thinking about the world.

First I would like to talk about Eindhoven. I think most of us know the Phillips company, and Eindhoven is famous for this, because here was building the first Philips factory. Now this factory adapted as a museum.

Here in Eindhoven the first what you have to do after the arrival is purchasing a bicycle. Because this is the easiest way to travel in the city and of course I think this a typical dutch life feeling. You can not leave out this. The city center is a good place, there are modern buildings, shops, restaurants, plaza and everything what you need. Here you can find the center of night life. There is a street with full of bars, discos and its name is Stratumseind. Here in this street there are lots of good parties and the best places maybe Peppers, Arcade or TIpsy duck.

City center

Stratum

I know most of the erasmus students come here because of fun and Holland is famous for lot of good djs, who comes from here, so here everyone can find really good music festivals too. For example Flying dutch, Extreme outdoor, or We are electric. Now I would like to show you some video about these festivals.

Flying dutch

Lake dance

For them who do not like the noisy activities and who wants just relaxing nature programs, I can offer for them the lakes. Not far from the city center there are two lakes, one of them is a beach, and the other one is a natural lake where you can do picnic with your friends and it can be a really cozy feeling.  But you can do bicycle trip around Eindhoven or just around the lake because bicycle can gives you a great opportunity to do this.

If you are interested in Eindhoven’s factory history, you should go to Phillips Museum. Here you can get information about the first Phillips factory and you also can get information about the technology development. Anyways the Phillips Museum is front of the Witte Dame, and as you know our school is in this building, so you do not have to walk much if you want to visit this museum.

Phillips Museum

The next best destination after Eindhoven is the capital city of Netherlands. It is not else than Amsterdam. There are a lot of good and exciting places here, so you should stay at least 2 days to visit everything and enjoy the time here.  You should visit the Dam square. In Dam square you can find Madame Tussauds museum, Royal palace. Not far from Dam square with tram5 you can find the famous IAmsterdam sign where you can take typical Amsterdam pictures.If somebody interested in art, then those people can not leave out the Van Gogh Museum. Not just Djs but lot of famous painters comes from Holland.

After when you visited here the places and if you walk maybe 10 minutes you can find the amazing Vondelpark. Really beautiful place where you can take a little break and just enjoy your trip and the nature because Amsterdam can be really crowded because of the lot of tourists. If you would like to learn about how beer is made, you should try the Heineken Experience and this is not far from Vondelpark, so it is easy to find the place.

Amsterdam also famous about canals, a little walk in the little streets can give you a perfect dutch experiments. If you like water trips, be sure to pay on a canal boat tour where you can pick different themes, such as sightseeing tours from canals. 

At night in the city center you cannot leave out the Red Light District, it is not depending on you are boy or girl. It is a thing what you have to see.  Of course, even part of the night life that you should sit around and try a coffe shops in Amsterdam. In red light district there is a coffee shop company and its name is Bulldog coffe shops so I think you should try this one.

Next day, my advice for you to visit Keukenhof park and it is organized trip and maybe 40-50 km far from Amsterdam. Here is the world’s biggest tulips park, really beautiful art place, but the problem is that, it is open just in spring months.

The second biggest city is Rotterdam. Here you should visit the Erasmus statue and Erasmus bridge. If I can give you another advice, then my advice would be visit the Markthal at night.  Markthal is the market of Rotterdam, but the building is really amazing especially at night. The colors the architecture are perfect. Not far from the Markthal there is a “harbor” and there is a little tiny but cute red ship bar& restaurant and if you can, please try this bar out.  If you want to visit mills here you can do it, because next to Rotterdam there is plece and its name is Kinderdijk where there are 19 mills. It has a history that is why the “KIinderdijk” name. If you would like to know more about this, you can get information if you visit the place.

Next one is Hague. Hague is the third biggest city in Netherlands after Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Hague is the currently base of the country's public administration. Here the most beautiful place is the Scheveningen beach. You can reach it with tram. Here you can finds restaurants on the beach and souvenirs shops. Perfect place to take a little break from school. The city center is beautiful so be sure to take a little walk there too.

We talked about what was our favourite trip and Jani Ambrus Ágota and me deal with that the best  place was Amsterdam. 

In my opinion, it is important to see these four cities before you leave the country. I hope you can use this blog post when you will book, or organize your own trip.

I hope you like it and if you have any comment please do not hesitate to write to me.

Amusement park in France

Attraction. This word is one of the most important words in the tourism industry. After all, without any attractions the tourists will not start their journey. Where there are no any tourist attractions, those places probably will not be real tourist destinations.

Several kinds of attractions can be distinguished, but now I want to focus specifically on the theme parks. Personally, I really like the theme parks, amusement parks.

While I was looking for articles for my blog, I found a very interesting theme park in France. This amusement park is located in Nantes city, in an abandoned shipyard. The tourists have been welcomed here since 2007.

In this park the tourists can try out robot animals. The metal and wood robots were designed by  French artists called Francois Delarozire and Pierre Orefice. They got their inspiration from Verne’s science-fiction stories, which include a lot of inventions. Apart from Verne they were inspired by works of Leonardo Da Vinci and last but  not  least, by Nantes city's industrial history.

There are several mechanical animals in this amusement park, for example the giant octopus, the pirate fish, the squid and the crab. The most important attraction is the Elephant, what can carry 49 passangers in the same time.

I want to show you four of these animals in details.

The first one is the Elephant:

The mechanical elephant is a-12-meter- high and a-8-meter- wide structure. It is made of 45 tons of wood and steel. It can lift up 49 passengers for a -45- minute- walk.   Furthermore, every part of the Elephant can be controlled: it can walk, it can blink, and it also can squirt water from its nose. The giant elephant is powered by a 450 horsepower motor, 60 cylinders, and 2000 liters of oil, and it includes pulleys and gears.

In this video, we can see how it works:

The second one is the Marine Worlds Carousel:

This 25- meter- tall Marine Worlds Carousel is the park's newest attraction, featuring 24 mechanical waves and there are three levels of rotating sea creatures. This is an authentic 360 degree theatre. The tourist can move together with the strange aquatic robot animals and they are able to guide the movement of the animals.

I would like to show a video about the carousel:

The third interesting machine is the Heron Tree:

It has a-45- meter  diameter and a-28-meter high. At the top there is a garden with two herons. The tourists are allowed  to climb either on the back or the wings of the birds, and the visitors can take a circular flight over the hanging gardens of the tree. After it they can take a walk on  the hanging gardens.

Here is a video about the Heron:

The giant ant is the last robot what I would like to show:

The tourist can drive through the place with this ant. If we want to drive this ant we need 5 people. 4 passengers should  manoeuver on-board  with their legs, and the fifth passenger should control the ant.

Here is a picture about the Giant Ant:

An interesthing idea came to my mind: if there is a park like this La Machine park in Nantes, perhaps we can create a robot animal zoo somewhere in the future. We have  a couple of initiatives in this field, where people can meet the animals' robot replica. In the future it would be great if the kids and of course the adults could learn about  how the robot animal structures work on an interactive and fun way. But in the future we should develop this area and we have to make it even more professional.

In the future I would like to visit a robot zoo, or robot animal park, because according to me it is more entertaining when the people can try out the robots, not just look at  them, the greatest example is in Nantes. Ágota also agreed with me in this subject. She also thinks that it is more fun, if we can try these creatures and we can get more experience.

In my opinion, these parks may have bigger role in the future as a tourist attraction, and maybe it will create new jobs for people.

Robot restaurants

Last week I was talking about the robot hotels and this gave me inspiration about my new topic. So in this week I would like to talk about the robot restaurants.

In the world there are lot of good restaurants with different themes, for example the restaurant can be underwater restaurant, airplane restaurant, prison or hospital restaurant. Or if we really like the space, we can it in the Mars restaurant. So I said there are lot of types of restaurant but we do not have so much real touch with robots yet, so for me interesting restaurant was the full robot restaurant al

So I would like to introduce a chinese restaurant, where the whole staff are robots. We can find this restaurant in Harbin, China. If the owner of the restaurant wants to save money they should use robots because as the boss said in the Chinese robot restaurants, the robots cost as much as an annual salary of a worker. So the robot restaurant have staffs a total of 20 robots as waiters and cooks.

There is a robot front of the door and this robot welcomes customers to the restaurant and directs them to the seating area.

I did not find information about how the people order the food, but I think the best option would be the touchscreen.  For example every table should be a touchscreen part and th guest can enter in the orders. After the system will send information to the robot chef and they will prepare the food.

I have read that these robot chefs are able to cook various styles of dumplings and noodles and usually it takes about 3 minutes to prepare the average order.

After when the food is done, the waitress robots carry the food to customers by following a track. These waitress robots are using sensors, and under the floor there are other sensors so they can connect with each other. Furthermore, every robot has a diferent own sensors, what is helping to avoid obstructions for example if a kid running through the place.

I saw an article about a new generation robot chef:

This robot chef is a pair of robotic hands, which could be set to revolutionise cooking and kitchen tasks. The commercial version of this robot chef will launches in 2017 and it will be able to make 2000 types of food. So the people will select food on their phone and after the robot hands will prepare the food. 

This robot hands uses 20 motors, 24 joints and 129 sensors. This robot wants to create the same range of movements that human hand can make. This is the first fully automated kitchen chef what is exist now, but this version is just the early version of the robot hands. 

The creator want to make an private appstore where the users can download recipes and instructions for the robots, if they purchase for this. In the near future when it will be appear on the market the restaurants can use this all over the world.

Here is a video about the robot hands:

I asked the other hungarians, what are they thinking about this restaurant? Is it looks good, or no? Do you want to try or not?

They said, of course they want to try this restarant because it is funny to see how the robot waitress moving around us. Furthermore, they are curious how the chef can cook the food and they would like to know that, this food also as good as the food what human chefs prepare or not.

Probably,  the number of these restaurants will spread in the world soon.

Hotels in the future

In this week, in my fifth blog, I would like to write about the automated hotels and their appearance in the not remote future.

The most important thing after the transportation is that, we need place where we can sleep and where we can rest. In the future it will be almost the same we can stay in hotels, but these hotels will be automated, and it will be equipped by robots.

I have read some articles on the internet about this topic and I found a japanese hotel. This hotel’s name is Henn-na Hotel and this is laying in the middle of a theme park in Nagasaki, Japan.

The whole hotel will have 72 rooms and, the staff will consist of 7 robots. In addition, the whole building will represent the latest new technology.

Recepcionist: The guest can meet with a japanese lady robots when they go to the front desk. This robot will have human gestures and she also can speak japanese, chinese, korean, and english too.

The robot system in the hotel will include a face recognizer entry system, body temperature detector system will configured to room temperature, robots will welcome the guests, the robots will cleaning the rooms, and not at least they will serve the coffee and foods. Instead of keys, guests facial recognition software can enter their rooms.

Botlr: This robot bellhop can hold standard room service items like toiletries, water bottles, and newspapers, and find its own way to hotel rooms. It can even ride the elevator. When the robot reaches the guest’s door, the system calls the room, alerting the guest to the delivery. camera and other sensors, can recognize that the room door has been opened and then lift the lid on the storage bin that holds the delivery. A touch screen on Botlr will allow guests to give the robot a review.  If the review is positive, the robot will do a small dance before it departs. When it returns to the lobby, Botlr can plug itself into a recharging station.

Here is a video about the robot bellhop :

Of course, energy supply will characterize of this hotel.

The hotel will open on 17. july 2015, so we have to wait for the people’s comments just 5 days.

I asked from Ágota that: "What do you think about the automated hotels. Would you like to stay in a hotel where the staff are robots?"

She answered yes. She would like to stay and she would like to try out this or these hotels in the future, but she thinks that in the first time it can be scary a little bit for her. Ágota thinks it is a good idea and they can save money with it.

I think one or two technological developments can be placed in the room, so that could be a mirror with touch-screen display, where the guests could give their order, and the mirror also could show their messages and it could show the actual weather.

In my opinion,  with these technological developments, we can achieve soon that more hotel like this will be opened around the world in the next decades.

If you have any comments, do not hesitate to write me :)

What was once only a dream is now becoming a reality ?

In this week I decided to write about the change of transportation, because it is the base of tourism. As we know that the tourism industry would not exist without transportation. Transportation has important role of people’s life who wants to see the world, because this is the only way if they want to reach the destinations.  So this area should impoving day to day, as human needs are growing.

So as I said transportation technology is progressing at a much slower pace than some of the other sciences such as information technology.

I have read some articles about that, in the near future, automotive companies will focus on fully automated vehicles where people can enter in or speak the place they want to go to and the vehicle will automatically take them there.  And for me the most important thing what I read in this topic was the space tourism.

In the near future we can travel in to the space by spaceships, so we can say that his is the new way of tourism transporting.

But what is exactly the space tourism? Space tourism is the term used to describe space travel for recreational or leisure purposes. 

Since the beginning of space travel, only 547 humans have traveled above the Earth’s atmosphere and into space.

Virgin Galactic:

The most famous space agency is the Virgin Galactic, so now I would like to introduce a little bit. This company has two vehicles, which can carry people into space. This two is the WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo.

Training:

The most important is security and that passengers are fully trained out of the spacecraft and every moment of the trip. Virgin Galactic offers the opportunity to do astronauts training in the future. They want to provide for their tourist an incredible experience. And not at least, the company is focusing on the fact, that the traveler have to be medically healthy. Each astronaut will take part in three days of pre-flight preparation, bonding, and training onsite at Spaceport America. Pre-flight preparation will ensure that each astronaut is mentally and physically prepared to enjoy every second what they spend in the space.

Passengers would be transported to a height of between 100-160km above earth, experience 3-6 minutes of weightlessness and a view of the stars before being taken back down to earth. This is expected to cost around $200,000-250,000 per person. 

When I think of space travel, my first thought is that, this could be a very exciting journey , but the second thought that comes to mind is whether this thing is safe enough? Would I like to travel to space? Would it be safe? How can I feel in the weightlessness?

I have talked about this with Ágota and she told me some interesting thoughts, about how she sees this topic:

 " I would like to go into space because not everyone can do this and very special. I think what I would enjoy the best is the weightlessness, because it is a really interesting physical thing. But maybe now this is not so safe but if we develope this area and we will focusing on it, it can be a better way for the tourism."

Furthermore, I think maybe in the remote future, we can find a planet where we can live we can breathe and where we can build the same life what we live now here on the Earth.

There is a movie about this topic, if somebody is interested in this. The name of the movie is the Interstellar. I saw this movie and it is really great story, and we can see really good technical solutions in it.

My last video is a little long, but if you want to learn more about this topic and Virgin Galactic you should watch this.  :)

Use of robots in tourism industry in the next 10 years!

Nowadays technology has bigger impact on people's life, and of course in the future the technology will have important impact. In this week I would like to write about the future of tourism, and about how will develop this.

When I started to look for articles, most of the articles were about the developing of mobile applications but I wrote about it in the last two times, so I continued the searching. There were some article about robots, how they can make  the future of the tourism more easy, and how they can provide  for bigger experiences for the tourists.

Tourism industry only uses existing technologies such as websites, cloud computing, but it also creates opportunities for the development of new technologies that can specifically benefit this industry. For example, a new trend is the use of robots and humanoids to enhance a trip experience for travelers.

These robots are being used in a variety of ways within the tourism industry to make tourism more accessible to everyone and also, to give a unique experience for every traveler.

I have read a few articles about these robots what can replace human jobs in the future, these robots can be for example bar tender robots, or a cooking robots, or tourguide robots. It can be a lot of types of robot what we can use in the tourism industry.

Bar tender robots:

At first, the bar tender robots can help with serving food, drink and bavarages. I think there is no better way to combine drinking and technology than by employing the services of a robot bartender.  The guest, enter through a touchscreen or maybe they can download an application and with this app they can send what he or she wants to drink, then the robot will prepare these drinks and select the right combination of ingredients.

Some of these robots already exist, but I think in the future these robots can be more better than nowadays. 

More accurate systems to build into it, and  to be able to do more things and we should reduce the size of  these robots, it would be better with small sizes. Last but not least we have to pay attention to the environmentally friendly technology.

For example this robot exist now:

Bar2-D2: This robot can serve beers, make cocktails, and wheel over to someone badly in need of some refreshment. It also serves ice!  Drinks recipes can be programmed through a touch screen or can be loaded online. The machine pours your drink into a glass, then uses water to clean the nozzle for the next cocktail.

Cooking robots:

In  the last period when we had to choose an invention what can replace human jobs, we were searching with the others and I saw this cooking robot, so I think It can be useful int he next generation of tourism.

The cooking robots can also serving food and bavarage. It could be really useful for example in restaurants. They do not have to hire more workers, because this robots can do their job in the same time more faster and precise, than humans. You need to take the datas and recipes in to the robot via  touchscreen and a variety of other options, if the guests want to make changes. Then, after the order, the robot is able to prepare the right food for the guests.

Here is a video about an automatic kitchen in the future: 

Tour guide robots:

Many museums offer the robot tour guide facility to people who are unable to visit museums in person due to physical disabilities. These museums use telepresence robots to give a virtual guided tour of museums. these robots can also help physical and virtual visitors to overcome language barriers by speaking in a language that they understand. 

I think it is really usefull, because when we were in for example in Amsterdam and visited the Royal Palace,there was english tour guide but because of we are not fluent speakers, we did not understand everything, but this robot could solve this problem easily. This is likely to help all visitors to enjoy the place better.

This video is about how works the tour guide robot, but this is not exactly in museums this is in a university, but I think the place is not so important now, because we can see how it is works and how we can use later. So if we will develope these robots in the next 10 years we can use in tourism industry later. Development can be precise gps system, radar, 360 degree camera, sensors.

I was asking Ambrus and Jani, what are they think about the robots in tourism, and I get these answers from them:

Jani: I think in the future  of tourism, robots can be useful, because the monotonous works will disappear, for example exhibition guide, cashier..etc.  As long as the robots do not disturbe people's intimate sphere. And not because of the robots should be enjoyable the trip, because of the experience should be enjoyable.

Ambrus:I think it would be awesome for the guided tour, or administration work. And I think it is good because it won't dis
turbe the private zone of the people.

And in my opinion robots can be useful inventions for the tourism industry.

Companies in the hospitality industry are looking to tap into the power of robots. Earlier, robots used to cost tons of money, and it was difficult for everyone to buy these technologies, but nowadays the cost has come down because technology is more available than in the last 10 years. And it will be more available for everyone in next 10 years.

If you have any comments, please do  not hesitate to write comments :)

Travel mobile applications and travel agencies ?

Last week I was writing about the connection between internet, mobile applications and  tourism, so now I would like to continue this topic.  In this week, my second blog topic's is the situation of the travel agencies.

Tourism is based on the needs of passengers. A typical traveler uses a smart phone not only to stay connected with friends and family back home via calling and texting, but also to learn and find places within the new destination.  

Tourism is based on the needs of passengers.  The travel agencies have to make packages and services, what is fits for the needs of tourists. So because of the developing of technology and the changing of needs, the travel agencies have to change also in a better way.

In the life of travel agencies, internet also played an important role, because they are working with different type of booking system. For example they are working with various hotel's reservation systems, or with airline companies reservation systems.

But nowadays there are more opportunity for the travel agencies too because there are developed mobile applications for travel agencies too.

There are some advantages, if a travel agency has own mobile application. For example:

·         travel agency can communicate easily the image of the agency
·         with this application the agency can reach more people, than before
·         the tourists can obtain information easily about the services of the travel agency, or they can even       order those package or services faster and easier.
·         who is download this application, can be up to date about the special offers and promotions from       the travel agency.

Travel booking simpler and faster with smartphones, By using the travel application the visitors can get detailed information about the travel packages, they can read useful information,  and descriptions about the  destination, and they can found pictures about the hotels and about the city or about the custom of that nation. In addition who wants to travel, they can book the trip through the mobile application, even they can take insurance for the trip, in the case if something is happens with the tourist.

Additional features of the application include the presentation of the destination, famous cities, a description of the main attractions. The smartphone app shows local restaurants, bars, entertainment venues and other tourist point of view a list of important sites. And the tourist can read comment about the places, because the guests who were there earlier can leave a comment, ot they can rate the places with stars.

The application can be implemented to quickly and easily book flights and purchase tickets for long-distance buses, ships, trains, and even car hire. Of course, the insurance can be concluded in the associated mobile phone.

I am in interested in this theme also, because in the last week me and the others travelled to Budapest and we booked our tickets on the internet, but ther was some people who could not print the tickets so there was an solution. The solution was the application of the airlines company, because the companie accept the e-tickets also. So we found a better way for the problem.

If the travel agency services includes the ticket sales, by using the application , the travellers have options to order the tickets on their phone. In addition, visitors can view a descriptions of different programs and the application can also provide recommendations to meet the interests of the user.

So in conclusion, if they would like to stay competitive in the market, they must be appear in the mobile marketing market too.

If you have questions or reactions, do not hesitate to write comments. :)