If you've started mostly talking in pictures, Starwood's youth-oriented Aloft brand has a service for you.
The Aloft Manhattan Downtown in New York recently started its "emoji room service" menu, which lets you order a half-dozen different packages of items up to your room by texting some pictures to a phone number. It's silly and cute, but the packages were actually decently thought through: according to Starwood spokeswoman Elizabeth Austin, lots of people tend to ask for bathroom kits, phone chargers, and hangover cures at Aloft hotels.
The delivery system is actually pretty low-tech. There's an LG MetroPCS phone hanging out at the front desk. When the two front desk employees get the text message, they send a bag up to the room in question. None of it's plugged into the hotel's central systems, at least yet. And no, you can't just text random requests to the front desk number. For now, it has to be on the emoji menu.
"We looked to see what guests are constantly asking for, and what they would never get on their own," Starwood marketing VP Paige Francis said. The emoji menu is available 24 hours, she said, and it's soon launching in London, Liverpool, and Bangkok. The menus will be slightly different in each city, tailored to Aloft's idea of giving people a bit of local color whenever possible.
I took a look in each of the emoji bags; the hotel has 10-15 of the more popular ones ready at any time. The "Refresh," "Hangover," and "Munchies" bags are all reasonably priced at $10, about the same price you'd pay at a local CVS. A phone charger costs $25. There's also a "surprise" bag, which includes an Aloft Rubiks Cube, some wrist bands, and some other branded swag I was sworn to secrecy about.
Your bottle of emoji Advil could soon come to your door by robot, if another Aloft pilot program works out.
During our conversation, Aloft's new experimental delivery robot, Butlr, rolled up to me. Butlr, who's currently operating at two Aloft hotels in Silicon Valley, is Starwood's version of Dash, which we saw at a Crowne Plaza in Silicon Valley. Butlr uses an internal map of the hotel to find rooms, and infrared collision detection to prevent itself from bumping into people.
Butlr has been stunningly popular among guests and staff in Silicon Valley, Francis said. Along with other ideas like keyless entry and smart mirrors, the emoji menu and robot valet are part of Starwood's push to find technology that stands apart, she said. "We're trying to not just create an app. Everyone has an app now," Austin said.
