New Japanese hotel to be staffed with robots

A hotel with robot staff and face recognition instead of room keys will open this summer at Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan.

Robots will provide a wide range of services at the hotel, including room cleaning, front desk and porter services, meaning you could be checked in by robots and have robots carry your bags your room.

The hotel’s first building complex is scheduled to open on 17 July 2015 with 72 rooms, followed by another 72-room building in 2016.

Initially the hotel will have 10 robot members of staff, but Huis Ten Bosch company President Hideo Sawada told a news conference. “In the future, we’d like to have more than 90 percent of hotel services operated by robots.”

The hotel's name, Henn-na Hotel, reflects how the hotel will “change with cutting-edge technology,” a company official said. This is a play on words: “Henn” is also part of the Japanese word for change.

Huis Ten Bosch is a theme park in Nagasaki, Japan, which recreates a Dutch town, complete with actual-sized copies of old Dutch buildings to bring the experience of The Netherlands to Japan.

http://ehotelier.com/news/2015/02/05/new-japanese-hotel-to-be-staffed-with-robots