Your Resort Concierge Is In all probability a Texting Robotic. Srsly.

Photographer Andrew Gallery requested a bottle opener and further glasses on the

Loews

Santa Monica Seashore Resort in California through the lodge’s Chat Your Service app throughout a latest keep. “I simply really feel prefer it’s some completely satisfied one that is down to assist,” says Mr. Gallery, who lives in Los Angeles, of the assistance he acquired. “However I’m not 100% certain if it’s folks on the opposite finish.”

The Loews makes use of off-site workers 2,000 miles away to reply texts or cellphone calls, says supervisor Lara Loewl, who oversees a employees of 14 brokers on the firm’s engagement middle in Franklin, Tenn. Most company by no means suppose to ask who’s answering them, she says.

These staffers area frequent requests, together with housekeeping or restaurant reservations, inside minutes, with out involving the lodge’s concierge group. The group isn’t fast to share their precise location. “We all the time say we’re an extension of the entrance desk,” she says.

This shift to texting and automatic responses has occurred as a approach to deal with staffing shortages, lodge executives say. Some companies are provided through synthetic intelligence.

“It’s simpler to get their wants met and it’s much less intrusive,” says Tina Edmundson, international model and advertising officer at Marriott Worldwide Inc., based mostly in Bethesda, Md.

The quantity of texts despatched through Marriott’s app tripled in 2021 from the 12 months prior, with some resorts needing to reshuffle employees duties to satisfy the wants of company, Ms. Edmundson says. For the previous six years, Marriott manufacturers, together with Moxy Accommodations and Westin, have provided company the choice to make use of the Marriott Bonvoy app to speak instantly with lodge employees. Textual content replies come from a mixture of lodge staffers and automatic responses, based mostly on the request.

On a weekend journey to Mexico, Tracy Shaw was prepared for “a break from every part”—even speaking to the lodge employees. The Encantada lodge in Tulum let her textual content them as an alternative.

All through the lengthy weekend, Ms. Shaw, a 45-year-old advertising supervisor from Tampa, Fla., used WhatsApp to request morning espresso on her terrace, strawberry margaritas on the seaside and predinner tequila photographs in her room. Dashing off texts was much less awkward than calling the entrance desk, she says. “This isn’t one thing I’d decide up the cellphone for,” says Ms. Shaw, who stayed on the lodge along with her husband in December. “We had been completely spoiled.”

Cassie Down, a publicist who checked into the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, was relieved to seek out “Rose,” which the lodge describes because the “resident mischief-maker and digital concierge” answering her requests. Ms. Down, who examined constructive for Covid-19 shortly after checking in for her household trip and “couldn’t roll over to select up the cellphone,” was much less self-conscious about making requests by textual content.

Ms. Down says “Rose” texted her that “once I’m in temper, I are typically beneficiant with mates.” The bot helped organize supply of two nights of pizza dinners and a tube of toothpaste from the sundries store downstairs, and relayed Ms. Down’s request for the additional towels and tissues to be left on the door. “Actually, she was so stylish and witty,” says Ms. Down, 30, who lives in San Diego.

Actual-estate dealer Susan Harrison spent the weekend of New Yr’s exchanging texts with “Johnnie Brown,” a computerized spider monkey on the Colony Resort in Palm Seashore, Fla. Ms. Harrison, who lives in New York, loved that each one the messages she acquired had been signed with a monkey emoji in a cheery tone. Her requests about Advil, workouts lessons and dinner reservations had been addressed in minutes. After reserving a desk for 8 folks, she was assured that she can be “seated on the profitable desk.”

The lodge, which has had the monkey as its mascot since 2016, says company just like the effectivity of texting, an choice it began providing in 2020.

Hyatt Accommodations

is deploying Medallia Zingle, text-messaging software program, throughout greater than 1,000 resorts in 68 nations. Workers are inspired to indicate persona, together with utilizing emojis or lighthearted language every time doable, says

Julia Vander Ploeg,

Hyatt’s international head of digital and know-how. The highest request is for bottled water.

Concierges on the Pendry Chicago check with company by their final title and a title through textual content, use signoffs that embrace “at your service” and are cautious to scan for typos. Emojis and casual greetings are successfully banned, concierge Alex Yu says.

Some company admit they miss the small speak. After utilizing textual content to rearrange rides inside the Resort at Paws Up, a 37,000-acre luxurious ranch in Greenough, Mont. Wealthy Burt, a retired audio engineer from Orlando, Fla., realized he wanted extra than simply effectivity. The three-word texts he exchanged along with his driver had been handy, however he prefers selecting up the cellphone and speaking about his day. “I’m extra old style,” he says.

Raj Singh created an AI-powered concierge named Ivy that’s utilized in 3,000 resorts. He estimates that roughly half of resorts supply messaging companies. Mr. Singh, now chief technique officer at Revinate, a lodge software program supplier based mostly in San Francisco, says texting with Ivy is supposed to really feel like texting with a enjoyable, in-the-know good friend.

However even one of the best chatbots stumble at some queries. A latest one: “Truly, this is likely to be a bizarre query…are the toilet home windows see-through from outdoors?” Ivy referred that question to a human.

Write to Alina Dizik at alina.dizik@wsj.com