Imagine, if you will, a morning at the Vdara Hotel & Spa. You wake up too late for breakfast (Las Vegas, right?), with just enough time for coffee and a granola bar from the Market Cafe downstairs. So you grab the in-room Krave tablet, type your order for in-room delivery and start to get ready for the day ahead.
Meanwhile, downstairs at the cafe, staff receive the request and get to work. They summon one of the property's robot butlers, load them up with your coffee and snack and send them on their way. Seven minutes later, your hotel room phone rings, and when you open the door there's a robot the size a small child with a dog fur-inspired print and your order in a compartment at the top.
"It also asks for feedback," said Vdara general manager Mary Giuliano. "When they get a five-star review, they will do a little shimmy."
"They" are Fetch and Jett, a pair of robot butlers by Savioke that debuted at the MGM Resorts hotel earlier this month. The company first learned about the bots when they saw a demo at the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition & Conference more than a year ago. "From the very first meeting we had with them and they brought in the demo robot, it was astounding the guest response," Giuliano said. "We knew it was going to be a popular amenity."
At the Vdara, they decided to use the machines to augment in-room delivery service specifically from the Market Cafe. That means guests can order grocery-like items for room service, and the robots have to navigate the 1,490-room resort's elevators and hallways.
"They're very autonomous," Giuliano said. "They're monitored 24 hours a day. We can see if they run into any obstacles. They will wait for the guests to go around them. They will wait for the elevator. All of that is preprogramed on the back end to ensure that they can safely get around."
By using Fetch and Jett to add a new amenity for hotel guests, Giuliano said, the robots haven't impacted areas staff already services, and when the bots occasionally get a cash tip, their human handlers can take it home.
Most importantly, the early guest response has been extremely positive, the general manager added. "This is a huge wow. Just to be on property and see guest reaction. It's that wow that we've created, it really is an amazing amenity that we've created."
For now, the Vdara is the only resort in the MGM lineup using the Savioke robots, and while there are no specific plans to deploy them elsewhere, Giuliano said the resort is serving as something of a test case for how they might be useful in other capacities. These robots aren't necessarily equipped to take away complex jobs, but they can make morning coffee deliveries move a little faster.