Huis Ten Bosch has announced that it is no longer in talks to accept an investment from China’s Fosun Group.
In December the theme park company had revealed plans to sell around 25% of its shares to Fosun. By working more closely with Fosun, Huis Ten Bosch hoped to attract 200,000 more Chinese visitors a year to the Japanese theme park. In addition the closer ties between the companies would assist Fosun in building theme parks in China.
The Nikkei Asian Review reports that Huis Ten Bosch owner, H.I.S., said, the negotiations “did not result in an agreement” and did not give any further comments.
Robot hotels
H.I.S. is well known for its early adoption of robots in its Henn na hotel chain.
The first robot hotel was at Huis Ten Bosch and H.I.S. had ambitious plans to open 100 robot hotels by 2021, rolling out 1000 reception bot systems.
AI and robot technologies are anticipated to have a major role in the future of attractions, with Alibaba recently opening a robot hotel.
However, H.I.S. announced this year that they would be culling half the bots as in practice they caused more work for human staff.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-Deals/Huis-Ten-Bosch-pulls-out-of-talks-to-sell-stake-to-China-s-Fosun
