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Robots and artificial intelligence represent a newly emerging trend in tourism and hospitality. In her research, Dr Miju Choi examines tourists’ responses to being served by robots in hotels.
Dr Miju Choi, working with researchers from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, has recently completed a project examining tourists’ responses to being served by robots in hotels. This builds on her recently completed international project on digital skills, undertaken with our Visiting Professor David Parsons and independent consultant Kenneth Walsh, for the OECD Tourism Secretariat in Paris (Europe).
The Approach
Robots and artificial intelligence represent a newly emerging trend in tourism and hospitality. However, studies examining how cultural perceptions influence tourists’ experiences interacting with service robots are lacking. In response to the industrial trend, the experiential components of robot-staffed hotels are assessed in this study. A qualitative approach is adopted to compare the semantic networks of Japanese and non-Japanese tourists’ online reviews, using 1,498 reviews from nine robot-staffed hotels in Japan.
The results indicate that hotel guests’ interaction with robots is one of the main experiential components in robot-staffed hotels. The semantic network analysis results demonstrate noticeable differences, with Japanese reviews demonstrating more emotional responses to human-robot interaction and non-Japanese reviews valuing the functional and technical aspects of robot-provided services more.
Choi Y, Oh MM, Choi M, Kim S (2021). Exploring the Influence of Culture on Tourist Experiences with Robots in Service Delivery Environment. Current Issues in Tourism
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