Consumers’ Attitudes Towards the Introduction of Robots in Accommodation Establishments

Abstract

Robots are increasingly discussed in academic literature as well as public discourse because of their introduction into consumers’ lives. The increased usage of robots in industry will meet with resistance from customers in the service industry as well as employees in industry, as their capabilities increase and they are used to augment or replace human labour. This article explores data gathered from a 2017 survey of 393 Iranian consumers to determine how Iranians perceive the use of robots in hotels, indicating which tasks Iranian consumers find robots can do for them and those that they want humans to continue doing. The findings reveal that Iranian consumers’ attitudes towards having services performed for them by robots is largely driven by general attitudes towards robots, a recognition of the advantages of robots compared to humans, experience with robots, and the social skills of robots. It is noteworthy that no demographic variables explored seem to play a role in shaping attitudes towards service in hotels by robots.

Keywords: Robots, Artificial Intelligence, Hotels, Hospitality, Attitudes, Iran