Is this the automated wave of the future? A Japan resort operator has announced it will replace one-third of the 1,200 full-time and part-time workers at its Huis Ten Bosch amusement park with robots in the next three years.
H.I.S. Chairman and CEO Hideo Sawada said in an interview with Nikkei Asian Review that he plans to reduce that number to about 800 by 2021. The human workers “will be reassigned to growing businesses within the group,” Sawada said.
The Dutch-themed Huis Ten Bosch is located in Nagasaki Prefecture, one of several regions contending for a Japan integrated resort license.
According to the Review, robots are already in charge at H.I.S.’s Henn na Hotel, where more than 200 of the electronic employees handle check-ins, cleaning and landscaping, among other tasks. “Our goal is to boost the productivity of the service industry” and “cut labor,” Sawada said.
Just seven flesh-and-blood workers are on staff there.
Sawada said he is also trying out an electronic payment system using smartphones at Huis Ten Bosch. “We will turn the park cashless in a year,” he said, to “reduce the number of cashiers and wait times.”
