The Robot hotel

The Henn’na/ weird hotel

Japan is one of the leading places for technological developments and the Henn na hotel is one of its newest projects. The Henn na hotel is a Japanese hotel that comes with a full service of entirely robots. The reception is run by a dinosaur robot and a humanoid female robot that speaks English and Japanese. Guests are able to check in using a facial recognition technology instead of a standard electronic key and guests can register their faces during check in. leading up to the room a robot is there to carry luggage and escort guests to their Allocated rooms. A giant robot arm is used to lift storage boxes where guests place their items to use as storage (also known as the robot cloak room). Staying at the Henn na hotel can cost up to 9,000 yen (£56) per night which is a bargain for Japanese people. Breakfast and event information is delivered by robots, however people are there to make the beds and check the security system (CCTV).

What does this mean for the future employment of people?

With such developments it means more people are out employment and can be damaging for the economy. Instead of people earning money it is only being used to develop these robots and soo much money goes into fixing them if they were ever to not function. The robots are used to run almost the entire services of the hotel, guests aren’t making any interaction with people. Hideo Sewada the owner of the hotel mentioned that although the robots are not able to make the beds new improvements will be made to make it possible for them to do so, which will only put some of the few bed housekeepers out of jobs. Hideo Sewada could only be using robots for the sake of not having to pay more people. The robots can also be unreliable as they are likely to have manufacture problems. It is likely that in a few years more hotels around the world could result to using robots to reduce costs.  Some of these technological developments however can be used by other hotels, for example facial recognition could be used for security reasons. This leaves the question whether people view the Henn na hotel as more of an amusement park rather than accommodation?, it is a place where children would certainly enjoy themselves. In addition people do not get to experience the full services as that of a normal hotel whilst interacting with humans who will understand them better. 

In conclusion using robots to run the hotel could only be good for the sake of reducing labor costs and that it is a brand new idea . Whilst On the other hand it is likely to affect more people and put them out of employment as they will no longer be needed. People have to prepare for such changes because they are inevitable, finally could a lot more be done to ensure people do not completely become unneeded ? There has to be a solution for all of this. 

References

Demetriou, D. (2015, July 16). Robot hotel: inside Japan's Henn na Hotel.Telegraph . Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hotels/11743467/Robot-hotel-inside-Japans-Henn-na-Hotel.html