For the athletes at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, travel entailed … robots. Everywhere. These machines prepared and served noodles, rice and burgers, and roamed hallways to take the temperatures of passersby. They even passed the Olympic flame underwater. Yet even if you’re not an Olympian, your travels these days are far more likely to involve technology that you’ve never used before.
Many of these technological advancements were spurred by early pandemic pressure for contactless payments, food service and more. For example, between February and March 2020 alone, Mastercard saw the number of contactless payments at grocery stores grow twice as fast as non-contactless transactions. Meanwhile, the number of active restaurants on the Uber Eats food delivery app grew by over 75% between Dec. 31, 2019, and Dec. 31, 2020.
