Want a Different Kind of Work Trip? Try a Robot Hotel | Condé Nast Traveler
"When I arrived at Japan’s Henn na Hotel, I was greeted by eerily lifelike humanoid receptionists nodding behind the front desk as I checked in on a tablet — their serene smiles, porcelain skin, glossy black bobs, pristine white uniforms, blue silk scarves, and perfect caps make them shockingly realistic; they speak several languages, may blink when you say “good evening,” and can answer a weather query with “Tomorrow's weather is fine and 25°C.” The concept, launched in 2015 and once operating more than 200 hospitality robots at its peak, was later pared back after early issues (notably the in-room assistant Churi waking guests by mistaking snoring for a request) led the chain to decommission roughly half its robot workforce, but the pandemic renewed interest in touchless service and allowed Henn na to keep rates just under $100 per night while protecting guests who prefer less human contact. At the Hamamatsucho location the rooms are tidy and compact — bed, desk, chair, refrigerator, and television in 117 rooms — and only one human staff member (general manager Masashi Suzuki) is onsite during lulls; Suzuki says he thinks of the robots as coworkers because they “are always smiling, never take a break, and work 24/7,” which frees him to manage pricing, promotions, and handle issues callers need human help with (reservation changes, lost items, or glitches with the Oculus Quest 2 headsets the hotel lends). The chain now uses a hybrid staffing model with about 150 robots across 14 Japanese hotels and sometimes leans into novelty — some locations in Kyoto and Osaka swap the humanoids for multilingual dinosaur animatrons wearing bellhop caps and bow ties or scarves — while select sites (Maihama Tokyo Bay and Osaka Namba) deploy Sharp’s compact RoBoHoN concierges that control lights and air conditioning, answer common questions, recommend restaurants and attractions, and even perform more than 70 dances (hula, flamenco, ballet, traditional Japanese dance). Operationally, robots help cut labor costs and address Japan’s labor shortage — headcounts at some sites have fallen from roughly 40 to about eight — and their round-the-clock availability can boost satisfaction, though research shows that when robots look very human guests may expect full human abilities and can be disappointed by current limitations." - Jaclyn Trop, Asumi Nonomiya Suzuki
