Robot butlers, digital menus are hotels’ latest weapons to fight covid-19 spread

Set in the kelly green hills of ,reland’s County Clare, Dromoland Castle is the type of getaway that never sits empty. Why would it, with a pampering spa tucked behind 16th century walls, a par 2 cham pionship golf course, and more stars on travel review sites than in all of Hollywood" And yet, in the wake of covid 1 , the fairytale 0 acre estate like many hotels around the world closed its doors for safety in March. “We’ve stayed at Dromoland Castle twice and have been dream ing about going back, but obvious ly, right now we’ve been hesitant to travel,´ says Natalie Payne, a Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, travel ad viser with two teenage sons. According to the American Hotel /odging Association, “leisure and hospitality´ was the hardest hit in dustry in the covid 1 era, far worse than retail and construction. ,n the 8.S., hotels have lost more than

1 billion in room revenue since mid )ebruary as of -une , 60 of open for business accommodations are sitting empty. Some . million hospitality and leisure jobs were lost in April alone.

While reopening the tourism in dustry may feel like risky business, hoteliers are pivoting into recovery mode with the help of cutting edge technologies that can help minimize contamination and human touch points. “)rankly, it’s as much about keeping the employees safe as it is the guests safe,´ says Neil -acobs, chief executive officer of Six Sens es, whose 1 hotel portfolio has in stalled chemical free ozone cleaning systems that use electrically charged oxygen molecules to rid the air of bacteria, viruses, and odors. Here’s how hoteliers are readying selves for the new normal.

Among the hotels most firmly doubling down on high tech clean ing gadgets is the Carillon Miami Wellness Resort, whose apart ment like accommodations in South Beach, )lorida, reopen -uly 1. The property is using a device called the Curis fogger, which vaguely resem bles the Ghostbusters Proton Pack, to decontaminate air and hard sur faces with a hydrogen solution and spray hose. ,n the spa, a 8V C San itizer zaps . of bacteria on ob jects and surfaces.

Throughout public spaces, it’s also deploying hospital grade elec trostatic sprayers that are capable of decontaminating 1 ,000 sTuare feet per hour. /ikewise, 1 0s Scotts dale, Ariz., icon Hotel Valley Ho has ordered three of the devices for its property.

These sprayers are also the main weapon of choice for the recently reopened, ,02 room Venetian Re sort in /as Vegas, where the typical ly buzzing lobby is now sterile as an operating room. Greeting guests and team members at each entry are security officers with tempera ture taking thermal scanners. 8V lights decontaminate shipments to the mailroom, receiving docks, and even bellhop carts. And around the first floor’s many dining and retail venues, you’ll spot almost a thou sand physical distancing markers to encourage guests to space them selves apart in line. The hotel has branded its efforts as “Venetian Clean.´

Hotels such as the Vene tian which can have thousands of guests under one roof – are general ly not designed for social distancing. But simple solutions can go a long way. ,n Amagansett, N.<., guests

them can reTuest to use the Roundtree’s 8pang 8V sterilizer machines at the hotel’s Main House and Break fast Shed. Typically used to steril ize such items as baby bottles, they look like shrunken Smeg refriger ators that disinfect small objects, including cell phones and car keys, by exposing them to 8V C light for 10 minute cycles.

,n many cases, independent ho tels can be nimbler than big, bu reaucratic brands because they don’t have to worry about scaling costs or approval processes for every proposed tweak. Still, some global hospitality companies have the ad vantage of existing technology on their side.

Other hotels are investing in less intrusive machines, including Molekule air purifiers, which claim to destroy up to . of SARS CoV 2 proxy virus concentration in two hours. As of -une 1, guests can find them in all rooms and suites at Rhode ,sland’s Ocean House and Weekapaug ,nn.

Then there’s Asheville, North Carolina’s .impton Hotel Arras, which is rewiring old technology el evators to whisk guests directly to their floor without stopping to pick up others along the way.

Restaurants account for rough ly 2 of a hotel’s total revenue, according to real estate investment firm CBRE. To operate dining rooms safely, many properties are turning to reduced capacities At the ,nn at /ittle Washington, outside the nation’s capital, every other table at the three Michelin starred restau rant is populated by manneTuins.

But for a majority of hotels and travelers, dining will boil down to a new form of room service in which food carts are left outside guest rooms and retrieved by the custom ers, rather than being brought inside and unveiled by staff. At Nayara, a resort in Costa Rica’s Arenal Volca no National Park, the golf carts used for room service deliveries are fully sanitized before each contact less dropoff.

Others are going further in the need to eliminate as many touch points as possible when serving food. Before covid 1 , the Penin sula Hotels led the way with digital in room systems that let you control your room’s temperature, lights, or order slices of cheesecake at 2 a.m. with the tap of an iPad button. Now the company is moving those services onto guests’ phones with PenChat, a 2 e concierge service accessible via WhatsApp, )acebook Messenger, and WeChat.

At )our Seasons Hotels Re sorts, the pandemic has sped up proj ects already in the works. ,ts new )our Seasons App, now available across the 116 hotels, recently de buted with text based conversations with staffers (not bots) in more than 100 languages. ,t also puts any piece of information normally printed on paper spa services, local activities, menus, and more into guests’ palms, digitally.

At Marriott, menus have been made available in the Bonvoy app at 2 0 of the company’s , 00 hotels across 0 hotel brands Ritz Carlton, St. Regis, Editions, and W Hotels