Velociraptor Among Japanese Hotel’s Robot Staff
SASEBO, Japan, July 20 (UPI) — The staff at a Japanese hotel manned entirely by robots includes a realistic-looking woman and a bow tie-clad velociraptor.
The Henn na Hotel — which translates to “Weird Hotel” — features the humanoid robot and English-speaking dinosaur as receptionists and also features a tulip-shaped concierge robot, named Tuly, in charge of controlling lights in the rooms, as well as giving information on the time and weather.
An automated porter robot carries luggage to guests’ rooms, which use photos to create facial recognition room keys.
The hotel, located at the Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture,offers rooms for between $60 and $153.
“In the future, we’re hoping to build 1,000 similar hotels around the world,” Huis Ten Bosch President Hideo Sawada told Nikkei News.
The hotel is not the first business in Japan to employ robots — the Mitsukoshi Nihombashi department store in Tokyo featured a robot receptionist earlier this year containing 43 motors to allow her to gesture, blink, move her lips, create facial expressions and make other movements while giving preprogrammed answers to customers’ questions.
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