SSRN Electronic Journal · 2017 · 268 citations · 0 references
Open access
ManagementHospitality ManagementTourism ManagementArtificial IntelligenceRoboticsTourismArtificial Intelligence AdoptionHospitality OperationsRobotics AutomationSelf-service KiosksService Automation SystemsTourism EconomicsArtificial Intelligence In HospitalityArtificial Intelligence In TourismChatbots In HospitalityCheck-in KiosksHospitality Service AutomationRobotics In HospitalitySelf-service Check-out KiosksService Automation
Travel, tourism and hospitality firms are increasingly deploying robots, AI and service automation, yet scholarly research on their use remains scarce. The study examines the costs and benefits of adopting RAISA across a broad range of travel, tourism and hospitality businesses. Adoption is shaped by labor and technology costs, customer readiness, cultural factors, and the technical attributes of RAISA, and the paper identifies practical challenges such as resistance to change and service‑process reengineering. The authors recommend strategies for companies and robot manufacturers to overcome resistance to change and reengineer service processes, thereby enhancing competitiveness and service quality.
Travel, tourism and hospitality companies have started to adopt robots, artificial intelligence and service automation (RAISA) in the form of chatbots, delivery robots, robot-concierge, conveyor restaurants, self-service information/check-in/check-out kiosks, and many others. Despite the huge advancements in social robotics, the research on robots in tourism has been extremely limited – a gap that is partially filled by this paper. It investigates the costs and benefits of the adoption of RAISA by travel, tourism, and hospitality companies (hotels, restaurants, event organisers, theme and amusement parks, airports, car rental companies, travel agencies and tourist information centres, museums and art galleries and others). Specifically the paper looks at how RAISA influence the competitiveness, service quality, human resource management, service operations processes and standards, hospitality facilities layout, operating costs and revenues, and investigates the conditions under which the adoption of RAISA would be of benefit of the company. The paper acknowledges that the adoption of RAISA is dependent on the labour and technology costs, customers’ readiness and willingness to be served by a robots, cultural characteristics of both customers and service providers, the technological characteristics of RAISA solutions and other factors. The paper elaborates on the practical challenges to be faced by tourist companies when introducing RAISA (e.g. related to resistance to change, reengineering of service processes) and provide recommendations to both tourism companies and robot manufacturers how to deal with these challenges.