Back in 2015 business owner Hideo Sawada had a vision of the most efficient Hotel known to man. A hotel where guests would be checked in by a bowtie-wearing dinosaur and have 24-hour access to a concierge robot in their room. Today he is realizing that his dream may
Soon after its grand opening, The Henn
4 years later half of that Robotic Staff has effectively been laid off.
Apparently, The robots were good as a gimmick but struggled to perform the tasks they were designed for. In the long run, they actually created more work for their human counterparts.
Below are a few of the unlucky bots that got the ax.
- Velociraptor bots stationed at check-in: laid off because they essentially needed humans to perform most of their daily tasks, including photocopying IDs and answering basic guest questions.
- Robot luggage carriers: laid off because they were only able to access 24 of the 100 rooms and broke down during rain or snow. They were also extremely noisy and would consistently get stuck trying to get past each other.
- Churi the virtual assistant bot: laid off because it would wake guests up repeating the phrase “Sorry, I c
ouldn’t catch that” and “Can you repeat your request”. After several complaints, the hotel realized that this was being caused by guests snoring.
The robots shortcomings coupled with the high cost of replacing the robots meant that they just had to go. While robots are seen as the future in many industries, hospitality just doesn’t seem like one of them.
As Sawada put it “When you actually use robots you realize there are places where they aren’t needed — or just annoy people.”
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