Room-service robots like Savioke's Relay are designed to reduce in-person interactions between hotel staff and guests.
Photo: SaviokeRobots that delivered a burger and fries a few years ago were a high-tech gimmick that gave hotel guests a good laugh. Now, some manufacturers suggest these machines could help guests stay safe during a global pandemic.
Hoteliers and robotics companies say delivery bots like Relay, produced by the Google Ventures-backed Savioke Inc., are cutting down on potentially unsafe interactions between hotel staff and room guests, by offering contactless room service. And cleaning robots, like Maidbot’s Rosie, are vacuuming hallway floors while cleaning crews spend more time than ever sanitizing rooms.
“We always saw it as a good novelty,” said hotel investor Bob Alter. “Then comes along the pandemic and people want to not interact with people.”
Mr. Alter employs service robots at six of his California hotels. Before the pandemic, he said the bots would typically make between 200-300 trips a month, mostly ferrying items like toothbrushes or towels from the reception desk, on to elevators, and up to people’s hotel rooms. Those same bots now make as many as 700 trips a month, as more guests seek to avoid interactions with hotel staff, Mr. Alter said.
Requests for delivery robots from the hospitality sector have doubled since the pandemic began, said Steve Cousins, CEO of Savioke, despite the giant drop in business that hotels are seeing. Many of these companies are looking to start leasing robots next year, Mr. Cousins said, as they begin planning ahead for when they expect business to start picking up again.
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Savioke is now finishing work on a new robot that is two times as large as the pint-size Relay, to accommodate the larger items hotels want to send up to their guests, such as king-size pillows.
And there are new types of robots in development that could help hotel owners during the pandemic. Micah Green, the founder of Maidbot vacuuming robots, said he’s preparing to roll out wet-cleaning and disinfecting machines to further assist housekeepers in virus-proofing room surfaces.
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Hotel robots have been around since at least 2014, when a Silicon Valley outpost of Aloft introduced two to its guests. The Aloft brand is now owned by Marriott. A spokesman said the robots are still in use.
The use of robots in the hotel industry has concerned some that these machines could eventually be used to replace employees. Many U.S. hotels have reduced staff during the pandemic, and although hotel operators and robotics companies insist robots help rather than reduce staff, robots could limit how much extra labor hotels bring on to meet new sanitation demands.
Robots that service hotels can require programming tweaks before they master the layout of the property.
Photo: Savioke“We are doing everything we can to not increase our labor costs,” said Robert Rauch, an investor in San Diego-area hotels who recently decided to add more robots to his existing fleet. “Instead of paying overtime or hiring more employees, I’m able to, for the same amount of labor, get more work done and make guests safer.”
The robots aren’t always perfect. Children can confuse the robots by trying to get them to move in too many directions at once, causing the bots to get stuck, Mr. Rauch said. And sometimes it takes patience and a few programming tweaks before the robots really learn the layout of the hotel.
Mr. Alter said his first delivery robot, Winnie, would accidentally take the elevators down into the sublevel parking garage, where it would get lost. Another time, it mistakenly wheeled itself through the front doors toward oncoming car traffic.
“We had to reprogram it to behave,” Mr. Alter said.
Write to Will Parker at will.parker@wsj.com
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