Texas A&M AgriLife's digital magazine and newsroom
June 29, 2026 – by
The hospitality industry is advancing faster than most people realize.
Artificial intelligence, AI, and biometric scanners can analyze guest emotions. Virtual simulations can recreate high-pressure service scenarios. Behavioral analytics can reveal how people respond to experiences in real time.
At the Arch H. Aplin III ’80 Department of Hospitality, Hotel Management and Tourism, students and researchers are using those technologies in the Digital Transformation Lab, a pioneering facility and one of the first of its kind in hospitality and tourism research at Texas A&M University.
The lab gives students hands-on experience with tools reshaping the hospitality, hotel and tourism industries while creating new opportunities for industry collaboration and research.
Lab director and professor Babak Taheri, Ph.D., who is also associate head of the department, designed the space around a question the hospitality industry increasingly must answer: How do guests and employees actually experience a service interaction, beyond what they report afterward?
“Hospitality has always been about people,” Taheri said. “Our lab helps us better understand how people experience services and how innovation can make those experiences more meaningful.”
The lab combines biometric technology, artificial intelligence and immersive environments to capture insights that traditional surveys often miss. Researchers can use galvanic skin response sensors and AI-powered voice analysis software to measure physiological and emotional data in real time, helping uncover how people react during service experiences.
For doctoral student Faezeh Cheraghi, those digital tools have fundamentally changed the questions she chooses to ask in her research.
“What I value most about the Digital Transformation Lab is the way it expands the scope of what we can study as researchers,” Cheraghi said. “Working in this environment has reshaped how I approach research design, data collection and the questions I choose to pursue.”
“Technology should support, not replace, the human side of hospitality. This lab gives us new ways to explore that balance.”
Babek Taheri, Ph.D.
Arch H. Aplin III '80 Department of Hospitality, Hotel Management and Tourism
Professor and lab director
At the center of the lab is the PRISM Virtual Simulation Room, an immersive environment that allows students to navigate realistic hospitality scenarios before they experience them professionally.
Students can respond to a crowded hotel check-in desk, manage a restaurant during a service failure or work an emergency at a convention venue. Instructors can then repeat, adjust and debrief each scenario, creating learning opportunities that are difficult to replicate in traditional classroom settings or via research and rarely achievable through conventional workplace training.
Just a few years ago, this type of experiential, scenario-based training required expensive travel, extensive industry coordination or simply waiting for a real-world situation to happen.
Taheri said the technology allows students in the Aplin Department of Hospitality to encounter those situations before they ever set foot in a professional environment.
“Technology should support, not replace, the human side of hospitality,” Taheri said. “This lab gives us new ways to explore that balance.”
Beyond student training and faculty research, the lab also functions as a research and development space for industry partners. Hotels, restaurants and tourism organizations can use the lab to test new service concepts, pilot emerging technologies and study how guests respond before committing to large-scale changes.
Doctoral student Saba Ebrahimzadeh Maboud sees that capability as one of the lab’s most consequential contributions and one that reaches well beyond the hospitality field. The lab has opened the door to a wide range of interdisciplinary studies, she said.
Explore the technologies, research and immersive learning experiences shaping the future of hospitality at Texas A&M.
“The Digital Transformation Lab has added a powerful new dimension to hospitality research,” Ebrahimzadeh Maboud said. “Its potential, however, reaches far beyond our field.”
That collaborative model reflects a broader reality as the hospitality sector continues to evolve faster than traditional curricula can follow. The lab is designed to close that gap.
Taheri said the Aplin Department of Hospitality sits at the intersection of two priorities that define the industry’s current moment: the demand for highly trained human talent and the rapid adoption of AI-driven tools.
The Digital Transformation Lab reflects the department’s belief that understanding people more precisely, through data, immersion and behavioral research, does not diminish the human element of hospitality. Rather, it empowers organizations to create more personalized, meaningful and effective experiences.
“What excites me most is the opportunity to create a space where students can experiment, industry can collaborate and new ideas can come to life,” Taheri said.
Laura Muntean, media relations coordinator
[email protected]
601.248.1891
Are you interested in this content, need high resolution photos or assistance getting connected with an expert to learn more? Please contact our media relations team at [email protected].
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service | Texas A&M AgriLife Research | Texas A&M Forest Service | Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab | College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
Phone: (979) 803-1287
[email protected]
tamu.edu
Leave a Reply