"Let me scan your passport," said the nice man in the foyer of Tokyo's Henn Na hotel. "The dinosaurs tend to read them backwards."

The odd thing about this was not the dino reference, but the presence of the man himself. Henn Na – situated in Urayasu, on Tokyo's outskirts – markets itself as an almost entirely robot-run establishment, with human staff few in number and deployed only in emergency situations.

The friendly check-in staff at Tokyo's Henn Na Hotel. Credit:Andrew Masterson

Such as checking in, apparently. One day soon, some hotels will very likely be operated by artificial intelligence over the Internet of Things – but Japan's first stab at it falls conspicuously short of the mark.

The robotic koi carp in a big tank in the foyer are, admittedly, pretty cool (even if two of them did appear to have died 24 hours later), and the pair of animatronic velociraptors at the check-in desk are certainly fun to watch.