Legoland Pirate Island Hotel Customizes Alexa for Hospitality Smart Speakers With Treasure Hunts and Room Service
Legoland Florida has installed smart speakers with a customized version of Alexa for Hospitality into its Pirate Island Hotel. The voice assistant serves as an informational guide and concierge, with additional unique features for families and kids designed around the pirate theme of the hotel. Alexa’s contact-free interactions are also designed to assuage some of the health concerns of potential visitors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Legoland Alexa
Each room in the Pirate Island hotel comes with an Echo Dot of the previous, pre-sphere model, customized with a design on top and a note saying, “Ahoy matey, I’m Alexa.” The voice assistant combines controls for the hotel room amenities, with the information and service request abilities of a hotel front desk and concierge. Guests can operate the TV, music, or alarm clocks, as well as pull-up the guest directory and check-out, ask for valet service, or request items like towels. To fit with the nautical theme of the hotel, there are also some specialized features. Alexa will read pirate bedtime stories to kids and even run a treasure hunt with clues seeded around the room.
“We can leverage technology to drive new operating efficiencies while also enhancing the sleep over experience,” global head of business transformation for Legoland Parks parent company Merlin Entertainment James Barton said in a blog post. “Alexa has enabled us to process those service requests in a more seamless way, automate those service requests so that they’re finding their way to the appropriate member of staff for fulfillment without the need for walkie-talkies or picking up the phones and calling other departments. That’s all automated. That’s all happening kind of in the background. It’s getting the guests what they need to really just be able to focus on enjoying their stay and having a good time.”
Hospitable Voices
Alexa for Hospitality has been extending its list of client hotels at a steady clip since it debuted almost three years ago. In 2019, Westin Buffalo became the first hotel where guests could connect their personal Amazon accounts to the Echo devices in each of its rooms. While Amazon worked with Net Tech Inc. to deploy Alexa at Legoland, the Westin was a partnership with hospitality tech firm Volara. Volara works with both Alexa and Google Assistant has been rapidly signing up hotels and partnering with other tech companies to enhance its services even during the pandemic. The growth in voice hospitality is likely to pick up as people start traveling again when they are vaccinated. Alexa may face some stiff competition, but none of it’s rivals have a pirate treasure hunt, at least not yet.
“The guest room experience with Alexa is so unique and immersive, it will drive repeat visitors,” Legoland Resorts Florida hotels director Kevin Carr said. “This is priceless.”
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