Aloft’s Robotic Butler Tours Miami & Manhattan
Aloft Cupertino added a robotic butler to their staff last year, called A.L.O. Botlr.
I thought it was pretty neat that a robot could prioritize guest requests, navigate around the hotel (including the elevator!), make deliveries, call guests to announce arrival, and accept feedback to improve future deliveries. Rather than tips, the robot accepted tweets as feedback. If a positive remark was made, Botlr did a little happy dance to show appreciation.
Here’s a comment from Botlr –
“00111010 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 01101101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101010,†said Botlr, the world’s first robotic butler. “01101111 01110101 01110010 01101110 01100101 01111001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 00101110.â€
Translation? “I am happy to help you, wherever my programmed journeys take me. Tweets greatly appreciated”
The guest response was outstanding, and the hotel reported that people traveled there from around the world just to watch A.L.O. Botlr in action. After a year of hard work, Botlr is now ready for a chance of scenery and will be moving temporarily to the new Aloft South Beach property to work nights. It’ll hand guests beach towels in the lobby and offer items from a special beach menu.
In the Fall, Botlr will transfer to the Aloft Manhattan Downtown – Financial District property temporarily. If you’re lucky enough to be there on an evening when he’s on duty you’ll be surprised with either a bear or bull shaped cookie, based on how the stock market did during that day. You’ll also be able to order from a custom menu called “BotlrHeartsNYC” that offers MetroCards and bagels among other items. After the hotel’s ribbon cutting ceremony in September, A.L.O Botlr will return to Aloft Cupertino.
Botlr has become so popular that Starwood just announced that their second Botlr will be reporting to duty full-time at the Aloft Silicon Valley. It’ll expertly maneuver its way around 172 guest rooms and 5 floors, and make deliveries like toothbrushes and towels.
Have you met A.L.O Botlr yet?
