Where is the archaeological site of Rentina? Where can I eat local fish with a view of Lake Volvi? How can I take a souvenir photo next to your “digital tour guide”?
These are some of the questions a visitor to the area in Northern Greece might ask, but they are not being asked to a resident, a passing driver or even a GPS. They are being asked to Mini – a robot tour guide that speaks over 100 languages and knows everything inside and out!
Mini is a robotic tour guide that “carries” all information about Volvi on its hard drive. For the past few days, it has been located in a central location in Stavros, in the premises of the Information Office, which operates in collaboration with the room rental association. There, Mini provides answers to everything.
Volvi Mayor Diamantis Liamas spoke to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency’s radio station ‘Agency FM 104.9’ about Mini, saying it is their second time engaging with a robot.
“Our collaboration with Mini is very good. Last school year, we had a similar action with another anthropomorphic robot, which we presented in schools… a robot that the children got to know and loved,” Liamas said.
“Now we have taken the next step: a robot tour guide that talks to tourists in many languages and knows everything about our municipality: cultural events, attractions, accommodations.”
Although it doesn’t have much “experience” as a tour guide yet, Mini has already made quite an impression.
In addition to the information it provides, Mini has itself become an attraction, with many tourists wanting to take a souvenir photo or strike up a conversation with it.
“It exists, it works and people have embraced it. I would say that it is a very good experience, both for the foreign visitor and for the Greeks, who come into contact with technology at such an advanced level. It is something innovative that attracts interest, and that is why we went ahead with this initiative,” the mayor added.
Ortem Hellas AE, a technology company specialising in robotics and innovation, implemented the project “Supply of a Mini Social Robot and Development of an Artificial Intelligence Application for Providing Information to Tourists” for the Municipality of Volvi and built the robot tour guide in Thessaloniki.
“Thanks to the artificial intelligence that we developed entirely as a company team, we created an application that ‘runs’ inside the robot and brings technology closer to people,” said Asterios Ikas, legal representative of Ortem Hellas AE.
Ikas added that Mini’s strongest feature is its multilingual communication, with it able to support more than 120 languages and dialects, enabling each visitor to receive information in their native language.
“This personalised service substantially improves the visitor’s experience, making it more pleasant, more memorable and clearly more efficient.”
The company’s Greek team, based in Thessaloniki, was the one who imagined this new way of tourist experience – smarter, friendlier, more… robotic, as they say.
As its representative mentioned, it is already preparing other robotic tour guides, even for winter destinations.
“Mini and our other robots do not take the place of any worker, they simply complement, enhance and illuminate the experience. Because technology only has value when it collaborates with humans – not when it replaces them,” Ikas said.
