NEW ORLEANS – New Orleans-based company TrayAway announced Tuesday that 100 hotels – from Kazakhstan to California – are using its system to help pick up room service trays faster and more efficiently.
“Room service is a mix of comfort and luxury, but dirty trays packed with half-eaten pancakes and club sandwiches cluttering the hallway or stinking up a room send a very different message,” said TrayAway co-founder Will Lovett.
Having grown up in West Monroe, La., Lovett and his co-founder Josh Johnston set out to create a new standard for room service by exporting Southern hospitality.
“Here in Louisiana, we have a thriving hospitality industry and a major interest in taking care of our tourists and guests,” said Johnston. “Finding a way to improve travelers’ experiences is just our nature, and now we’re ecstatic to see our product in 100 hotels across ten countries.”
Once guests complete their meal, they click a button on the TrayAway device, which sends a message directly to the hotel staff through the TrayAway app.
“It’s like you have another person on your shift that is working on anticipating guest needs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” said Marko Ivkovic, the food and beverage manager at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans.
The system provides hotel managers with new, valuable performance metrics to see average customer wait times, the number of trays delivered, and more. Hotel Managers say TrayAway combats dreaded bad TripAdvisor and Yelp reviews, too.
“It has drastically lowered guest complaints about seeing room service trays in the hallways,” said Emily Archer, Hotel Providence Food and Beverage Manager in Providence, Rhode Island.
