Have your last hotel experiences been sadly lacking in the robot-helper department? A tweet from Universal Orlando may be hinting at a futuristic fix for that.
Testing, testing… #CabanaBayResort pic.twitter.com/ti1L8ielpR
— Universal Orlando (@UniversalORL) February 28, 2017
That digital deliveryman is a Savioke Personal Assistant Robot. While the only conclusion to be drawn from the tweet is that this robot is currently being tested at the Cabana Bay Beach Resort, a video of the model on the Savioke website elaborates on its use and functions.
For those who aren’t able to watch the video, it shows the robot delivering smaller items (drinks, snacks, etc.) to hotel rooms and charging between tasks. A human staff member receives an order, loads the storage compartment, inputs the room number, and off it goes; elevator travel being one of its capabilities. The video claims that this cuts down significantly on staff requirements, freeing them up to focus on better personal service.
Although we have not reached Jetsons’ levels of computerized convenience, if this test goes well we might be in for a new era of high-tech hospitality at the Universal Resorts.
(h/t – Orlando Informer)
And we wonder why the unemployment rate is high….
So, let me understand this. A “normal delivery takes 15 minutes” for a human to get the items, take the items to the room, knock on the door, and make the delivery. The robot, takes “half” the time? With the robot, the employee gathers the items, puts them into the robot, punches in the room number, then the robot takes the items to the room, and calls the room to notify the occupant. Sounds like all the robot is doing is saving the employee from walking to the room. Regardless, I’ve never called the front desk to have a soda delivered to my room either by robot or human. Now if robots can clean a room faster to make it available for the next guest then that would be something.
But what about something simple, like extra towels or shampoo? I can see it coming in very handy for simple things like that.
Ok, I can see something like that. Even then, the time it would take to use a robot wouldn’t be any less than having an employee do the same.
But the employee doesn’t have to leave their post and can do other things instead of wasting time walking to a hotel room to deal with some cranky tourist who forgot their toothpaste 😉
That’s it! It’s a way to releave the hotel staff with having to deal with a irritable or lazy tourist. Now that makes sense. LOL