Amap, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, and Sands China held a handover ceremony at NBA House in The Venetian Macao on October 10, where the first batch of embodied robot dogs named "Amap Tutu" officially became Sands China's No. 001 robot dog tour guides.
These robot dogs will enter Sands China's Macao resort properties after the NBA China Games, taking on tasks such as tourist guidance, wayfinding, Q&A responses, and facility directions.
At the event, Tutu navigated autonomously without remote control from the holding area to the center of the stage, automatically avoiding obstacles along the way.
Tutu had previously completed intensive real-world testing at NBA House in Macao. During an 11-hour service shift on the opening day of NBA House, the robot dog completed 214 autonomous route guidance sessions, responded to 4,546 visitor questions in both Chinese and English, and covered over 40 kilometers of autonomous travel.
Facing complex crowds on site, Tutu can proactively slow down and avoid pedestrians while handling multiple tasks including store and restaurant searches, public facility guidance, and interactive human-machine experiences, validating its fully autonomous service capabilities in open and complex environments.
Additionally, under the two parties' cooperation plan, Amap has integrated spatial information covering floors, corridors, shops, and public facilities to provide full indoor navigation for the resort area. Leveraging spatial intelligence technology, Amap is also building three-dimensional spatial models of certain areas within the resort, allowing visitors to adjust viewing angles through the Amap App and enjoy an immersive preview before departure.
Dr. Wilfred Wong, Senior Vice President and Chief Resort Marketing Officer of Sands China, stated that introducing Tutu represents an important practice by Sands China in promoting the integration of the tourism industry with cutting-edge technology, expressing hope that smart hardware can create convenient and warm resort experiences for visitors traveling to Macao.
Zhou Haijing, CFO of Amap, said that deploying robot dogs is only the beginning of long-term commercial operations. Maintaining stable operations during peak hours and truly integrating into the resort's service processes is where the real value of the partnership lies. Looking ahead to long-term operations, both parties will combine Sands China's scenario expertise with Amap's technological capabilities to continuously iterate product solutions, providing richer practical experience for embodied intelligence entering the cultural tourism sector.