H.I.S. Co., a travel agency in Japan, just opened a new kind of hotel officially dubbed as the "Henn-na" hotel. The name loosely translates to "weird" hotel in English. So, what's so special about this hotel? Well, it's mostly operated by robots. Henn-na hotel is located near Tokyo Disneyland, which is at Urayasu.
The Henn-na hotel is not the first robot hotel in Japan. In fact, this company opened a similar hotel in Sasebo, Nagasaki in 2015. This was the hotel that the Guinness World Records recognizes as the first hotel with a robot staff. The company is planning to build a similar kind of hotel in central Japan this coming summer.
According to Hideo Sawada, chairman and founder of H.I.S. Co., they are aiming to create the most efficient hotels on the planet by having robots take care of reception and also placing robots everywhere in the hotel to attend to the needs of the guests.
H.I.S. Co. aims to open more than 100 robot hotels. The long-term plan includes building them outside Japan. According to Sawada, they plan to build the first robot hotel outside of Japan within the next five years.
The robot hotels are not entirely staffed by robots. Humans are still on the premises to help maintain the robots and attend to the needs of the guests that can't be handled by the robots.
When you step into the Henn-na Hotel, the first thing you will notice is the robot receptionist. The said hotel also makes use of facial recognition technology as a way to check-in the guests. Then, there's also a robot porter, which can transport the guest's luggage from the lobby to the rooms. There's also a floor-cleaning robot to keep everything tidy.
The rooms feature sensor panels that check the body heat of the guests and then adjust the temperature accordingly. Also, the rooms feature Tuly, a lamp-sized robot that looks similar to a fat tulip. Tuly is like an assistant with whom the hotel guest can interact with. The guest can ask Tuly regarding the weather for tomorrow. You won't be able to find any switches in the hotel rooms. Everything is either automatic or you can ask Tuly to assist you.
A one-night stay in Henn-na hotel will cost you 9,000 Yen or around $80. When compared to other hotel rates in Japan, it's a bargain. Hotel prices in Japan can easily reach 18,000 to 27,000 Yen.
As mentioned before, Henn-na Hotel is not entirely operated by robots. One area that still requires humans is security. The hotel is full of security cameras and humans are watching the screens to ensure the safety of the guests as well as making sure that no one will run away carrying one of the expensive robots. Sawada jokingly said that robots “still don’t know how to make the bed.”
As of the moment, Sawada is keeping the hotel half-full for the first couple of weeks to ensure no major problems arise.
