Visitors to Henn-na, a restaurant outside Nagasaki, Japan, are greeted by a unique sight: their food being prepared by a row of humanoid robots. The "head chef", named Andrew, is using his two long arms: he stirs batter(面糊)in a metal bowl, then pours it onto a hot grill. In a nearby hotel, robots check guests into their rooms and help with their luggage.
CEO Hideo Sawada, who runs the restaurant and the hotel, predicts that 70 percent of the jobs at Japan's hotels will be automated in the next five years. He said, "Since you can work them 24 hours a day, and they don't need vacation, in the end it's more cost-efficient to use the robot."
This is seemingly worrying. In fact, in America, automation(自动化)helps the food-service and accommodation sector continue to grow. In the company Panera, because of its new kiosks, an app that allows online ordering, the chain is now processing more orders overall, which means it needs more total workers to meet consumers' demand. Starbucks customers who use the chain's app return more frequently than those who don't, the company has said, and the greater efficiency that online ordering allows has increased sales at busy stores (luring peak hours. Starbucks employed 8% more people in the U. S. in 2016 than it did in 2015, the year it began to use the app.
Of course, whether automation is a net benefit to workers in restaurants and hotels, and not just a competitive advantage for one chain over another will depend on whether an improved customer experience makes Americans more likely to dine out and stay at hotels, rather than brown-bagging(自备午餐)it or find an Airbnb to book unique homes.
