Hospitality Robots

What hospitality robots do

The most common hospitality robots carry things: room-service deliveries in hotels and plates between kitchen and tables in restaurants. Others greet guests and answer questions in lobbies, clean floors overnight or take orders at counters. Humanoid receptionists draw attention, but delivery and cleaning robots usually deliver the clearest savings, because they take on frequent, repetitive trips. Staff then spend more time with guests instead.

Where they struggle

Robots still find crowded dining rooms, thick carpets, steps and narrow corridors hard, and most cannot open doors or call lifts without building integration. Guests may find the novelty wears off quickly if a robot is slow or blocks walkways. Choose routes and tasks where the robot can move freely, and keep staff in charge of anything that needs judgment or a personal touch.

Rolling one out

Start with one task, such as room-service delivery or bussing, and one shift. Map the routes, connect lifts and doors where needed, and train staff to load, send and recover the robot. Tell guests what the robot does with signage. Measure trips completed, staff time saved and guest feedback for a few weeks before adding more robots. Share the results with the team.

Sources and further reading

• Digital transformation in restaurants: key aspects of service robot deployment from project initiation to evaluation — Frontiers in Robotics and AI.
  Interview-based study of Norwegian restaurants that brought in service robots, followed from planning to evaluation.
• World Robotics 2025 – Service Robots (press release) — International Federation of Robotics.
  IFR summary of professional service robot sales by application, with hospitality reported as its own segment.
• ISO 31101:2023 Robotics — Application services provided by service robots — Safety management systems requirements — International Organization for Standardization.
  Requirements for organisations that run robots in public-facing services, from airport guidance to hospital deliveries.

Common questions

Do hotel delivery robots use lifts on their own?

Many can, once the lift is integrated with the robot's system. Without that, staff must ride along or call the lift, which limits the savings.

Do guests like hospitality robots?

Many enjoy them at first. Long-term acceptance depends on the robot being reliable, polite and out of the way, with people still available when guests need help.