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The robots managing the Japanese will be replaced... by humans

2 min reading time

Published on 18/01/19 - Updated on 17/03/22

L’hôtel japonais géré par des robots… décide de les renvoyer

The hotel Henn-na launched in July, 2015 was the first property in the world entirely run by robots. Four years later, half of the 243 in operation will be scrapped.

Located in the Huis Ten Bosch amusement park near Nagasaki, the hotel currently has 243 robots. Their purpose is to entertain customers and reduce the property's operating costs. Starting with 80 robots four years ago, the bet seems to have been successful since the 200 room property now operates with 243 robots and only 8 humans.

Ideally, a tulip-shaped voice assistant in the rooms provides the weather and wakes up guests, robots on wheels carry luggage to the room and humanoid janitors provide information to visitors.

Although robots are not subject to the labour code, do not require breaks or paid holidays... their use would have become too expensive for the hotel because not all functioned as well as expected.

Thus the tulip in the room would wake up snoring guests believing that they were being asked questions, the baggage handlers could not reach most of the rooms because of a too steep inclines and the janitors were not always able to answer visitors' questions.

More recently, in China, Alibaba also opened an hotel  operated by robots

The hotel is therefore looking for humans to replace its robots, which never succeeded in performing housekeeping tasks properly - and making beds - proving that for now robots do not pose a major threat to hotel jobs.

And yet, companies continue to introduce them in the industry in order to replace hoteliers and cooks!

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