The 'Henn Na' hotel (literal translation: strange hotel) in Nagasaki, Japan is run by robot service workers, as cited in an article from Curbed. However, the only human staff are security officers and a cleaning crew, as described in an article from Business Insider.
The hotel is located within Huis Ten Bosch, a theme park that recreates the life of a Dutch town.
An article from Design Boom mentioned that last July 17, 72 rooms were opened to the public while the remaining 72 rooms are scheduled to open in 2016.
The article from Curbed concluded that the hotel may be employing some reverse psychology that robots are creepy.
In support with the conclusion, the article from Design Boom mentioned that the hotel is pushing the hospitality of the robots to the front desk, porter, locker services, and information room. The hotel has a staff of 10 eerily life-like robots which are designed to look as if they are breathing, blinking, and making an eye contact, as reported in Telegraph. The article from Telegraph added that robots will greet guests at the reception, will deliver room services via a tablet computer, will clean rooms, and will carry luggage.
In addition, an animatronic dinosaur on reception is on hand for the English-speaking guests, as said in Telegraph. Furthermore, humanoid robots are multi-lingual and can converse in Japanese, English, Korean, and Chinese.
As seen in Telegraph, Hideo Sawada, president of Huis Ten Bosch, said: "In the future, 90 per cent of the hotel's services could be carried out by robots."
Rooms cost $80 per night, as reported from Business Insider. The article from Design Boom added that the room has the latest face authentication system that recognizes the face of the guest, so keys are optional. Furthermore, the airconditioning system has radiation panels rather than the conventional air ventilation system.
The article from Design Boom added that the hotel's goal is to realize an entirely new low cost intuitive hospitality system that provides a comfortable stay and world class productivity.
As mentioned in the article, out of 144 rooms, 72 rooms will be operated by the Kawazoe Lab at the University of Tokyo to help with any design and technical problems that may occur. Moreover, Kajima Corporation will be the one to provide further financial support for the full project.
Pictures of the hotel can be seen in Curbed, Design Boom, and Telegraph.
