Chihira Kanae is greeting visitors to the world's biggest travel fair in Berlin this week, answering questions and guiding people in the right direction. But one passer by's attempt to ask her out for dinner is met with silence.

在本周于柏林举办的世界规模最大的旅游博览会上，Chihira Kanae热情接待到场的访客们。此外，她还回答访客们的问题并为人们指明方向。不过当一位路人试图邀请她吃晚饭时，她却只以沉默回应。

That's because Chihira Kanae, despite her lifelike¹ features and long brown hair, is a robot, the third version² of a robot in human form developed by Toshiba and can only answer pre-programmed questions.

这是因为，尽管Chihira Kanae外表栩栩如生，留着一头棕色长发，但“她”却是个机器人。她是东芝研发的第三代人形机器人，并且只能回答程序提前设置好的问题。

She was joined at the ITB fair on Thursday by another robot host Mario, a small red and white robot made by French Aldebaran Robotics, showing how they might be put to use in the travel industry, such as checking in hotel guests.

周二，她和另一个机器人Mario一起参加了ITB博览会。Mario是一个红白相间的小型机器人，由法国的亚尔迪巴朗公司制造。本次展览显示出了机器人将在旅游业中能够发挥什么样的作用，比如说为酒店旅客办理入住。

"The point is to make people smile and give them a unique experience. It's not to take the place of employees," Fabrice Goffin, co-founder of QBMT whose software powers Mario, told Reuters at the fair.

QBMT的联合创始人法布里斯·戈芬在博览会上向记者表示：“放置机器人的目的是让人们微笑着获得独特的体验。我们并没有用机器人替代人类雇员的意思。”

The Marriott hotel in Ghent has been trialling Mario, using him to hand out room keys, high-five guests and liven up meetings held in the hotel by reading out presentations³. Marriott was keen⁴ to stress that Mario will not replace any human staff.

根特市的万豪酒店已经在试用Mario，让他递交房门钥匙、和顾客击掌，以及在酒店承办的会议上朗读展示稿来活跃气氛。同时，万豪酒店也强调，Mario并不会取代任何人类员工的岗位。

"For now it's a great add-on service," Roger Langhout, general manager of the Marriot in Ghent, said.

该酒店的总经理Roger Langhout表示：“现在这只是一种扩展服务。”

A survey of travelers across Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Japan, the U.S. and China, done by online travel and entertainment deals site Travelzoo showed that 80 percent of consumers⁵ expected robots to play a big part in their lives before 2020.

在线旅行娱乐网站Travelzoo对英、法、西、德、加、巴、日、美、中的游客们进行了一项调查。结果显示，80%的消费者期待在2020年之前让机器人在他们的生活中发挥重要的作用。

However, the survey also showed people still wanted the human touch when on holiday and in certain countries, such as Germany and France, consumers were more skeptical⁶.

不过，调查结果也显示，人们在度假中仍然需要和人类的接触。而在一些如德、法之类的特定国家，消费者们对机器人存有更多的疑虑。