JAPAN – A hotel staffed entirely by robots, have opened its doors in southwest Japan. The Henn-Na Hotel is run by Hideo Sawada, a recognized business man in the travel industry, who lead the project to offer a place to stay for the visitors of the Huis Ten Bosch theme park.
Guest are received at the reception by a female android with blinking eyelashes and speaking fluent Japanese. There is also an english speaking robot dinosaur with a bow tie. The check in is automated using a touch screen that the guests use to enter their details and get a picture taken, which then would be used by a facial recognition system to open the room. Luggage is no problem then, since a robotic porter will take care of it, bringing it to your room.
Sawada explains that the idea of the Henn-Na Hotel, or “Weird Hotel“ in English, is to highlight innovation and “do something about hotel prices going up“. Sawada also aims to reduce waste, save energy and develop a self-sufficient hotel, powered by solar energy and machines.
“I wanted to highlight innovation,” Sawada said. “I also wanted to do something about hotel prices going up.”
The 72 room building have competitive prices starting $80 a night, a bargain for Japan where most hotels would cost two to three times more. This could be possible given that the salary associated costs have been reduced by 26%, claims the hotel’s operator.
However there is human staff in the building in charge of the security cameras to make sure the guests are safe and no one steals the expensive robots.