Travelodge has enlisted a set of robot cleaners to support its housekeeping teams across 579 properties in the UK.

The 7,500 RoboVac Buddies, developed by Sheffield-based company Killis Ltd, are being used to “lighten the workload” for its housekeeping team members, who clean nearly 44,000 rooms daily.

Each housekeeping team member will be allocated one of the yellow machines, which will vacuum the rooms as well as the hotel’s hallways, public spaces and the bar café.

See a video of the robots at work here.

The project took nine months to complete and included the production of five prototypes before the final product.

The robots, which “speak Travelodge specific software data language”, feature an industrial booster battery allowing it to vacuum plenty of rooms with one charge, and also have a larger and lighter dust collector which can be emptied at the end of the shift.

The hotel chain says that the robots are greener and quieter than a traditional corded hoover, using 60 watts of power rather than 1200 watts. The RoboVac is also bagless which means there is less waste to landfill.

Craig Bonnar, Travelodge, chief executive, said:

“We are very excited to kick start 2022 by revolutionising the hospitality sector and supporting our housekeeping teams with the roll-out of the UK’s first hotel RoboVac Buddy recruitment programme. Housekeeping is the most important and physically demanding job at Travelodge and we are always looking for low cost and innovative ways to support our colleagues.

“Automating vacuuming with the introduction of the Travelodge RoboVac Buddies is a fun, win-win solution which helps us to drive a greener, cleaner and more efficient room clean. The army of Travelodge RoboVac Buddies have settled in really well and are a massive hit with our hotel teams and customers.”

Lira Namoni, Travelodge RoboVac Buddy Trainer, added:

“On behalf of my colleagues across all of the UK Travelodge hotels, we are thrilled to welcome our new RoboVac Buddies. They are just incredible and made such a significant difference to housekeeping duties. They have now all completed their induction training and passed their probation and are just raring to get to work.”

Tibor Killi, managing director of Killis Ltd, said:

“We are delighted to work with Travelodge and create the UK’s first hospitality spec RoboVac. This is the largest cleaning equipment mobilisation in our company’s history and it has been an honour to be making history with Travelodge within the hospitality world.”

It didn’t get off to a smooth start, with a mishap during training in January. One of the machines at Cambridge Orchard Park Travelodge had a technical glitch during its reception cleaning shift and took to the streets of Cambridge. The device was found under a hedge the following day and resumed its services later that day.

travelodge.co.uk