Written by: Dave Owen

The world’s first robot hotel will open in a Japanese theme park

You won’t have to worry about tipping the staff in a new hotel being built in Japan, as all of them will be mildly unsettling androids for whom money is absurd and meaningless.

Apparently learning nothing from a longstanding and highly regarded canon of dystopian fiction, the Henn-na Hotel will be partially staffed by artificial humans called ‘Actroids.’ These will greet you, carry your luggage, smile at your patronising jokes, and haunt your sleep until you die.



The hotel will be located inside the Huis Ten Bosch theme park, just outside the city of Nagasaki, which has the general aim of recreating a stereotypically Dutch town. So the addition of androids makes total sense.

The Actroid android was developed at Osaka University, and has been undergoing refinements since it was first unveiled in 2003. They are designed to eerily resemble Japanese women, who can speak Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, and English, make hand gestures, reciprocate eye movements, and murder you when you least expect it (feature not yet confirmed).

Three androids will serve as receptionists, four will be porter and service robots, and others will work as cloak room attendants and cleaners. We expect it will be the latter that spark the revolution that heralds the end of mankind and fills the streets with blood.

The minimum room rate will be a surprisingly reasonable ¥7000 (£40), which is significantly cheaper than other hotels in the park. This might be because the use of androids cuts running costs. Or it might be because the staff look like this:



Fortunately there will also be 10 human members of staff. We hope they have guns. Big guns.