Beware hospitality industry: the robots are coming

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of how artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics can and will be utilized by the hospitality industry, providing a glimpse of what their use will look like in 2030. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviewed both academic and trade literature to provide an overview of how robots will affect the hospitality industry during the 2030s. Findings Experts predict that by 2030, robots will make up about 25 per cent of the “workforce” in the hospitality industry. The paper also explains the industry challenges the robots will solve, as well as other benefits they provide. One of the findings is that the adoption of robots by the industry will be a disruptive paradigm shift. It will create successful new hospitality companies while putting others out of business. Finally, this paper discusses how to keep the hospitality in hospitality businesses, when machines replace employees. Originality/value This paper is one of the first to discuss the disruption that robots will cause in the industry. One of the findings is service delivery systems will need to be redesigned to maximize the benefits of robots, while still maintaining the hospitality of a customer service orientation.

“Big brother is watching you”: surveillance via technology undermines employees’ learning and voice behavior during digital transformation

“…Fulfilling our second criterion, at the same time, there is variance in how travel firms react to that increasing digitization. While some firms are at the forefront of adopting digital technologies (e.g., mobile integration, virtual reality, artificial intelligence), others still largely rely on personalized support of travelers (Bowen and Morosan 2018;Bughin et al 2018).…”

Impact of Artificial Intelligence in Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality

“…Artificial intelligence applications usually require large hardware capacities (processing and storage) to run adequately, although there are certain hardware architectures that are more well suited for AI. Regarding interoperability, one of the key features of AI is its ability to have machines interoperate (Bowen and Morosan 2018;Gretzel et al 2015), thus automating the aggregation and consolidation of data from multiple sources (Buhalis and Leung 2018).…”

“…It requires a limited amount of humans in its operation. These efficient hotels will be attractive to value conscious guests (Bowen and Morosan 2018), because they can save the main costs of the hospitality industry (Gursoy 2018). At the other end of the spectrum is the distinguished hotel, in which humans will be used in different touch points as a way of differentiation.…”

“…These authors found that that the people with negative sentiments toward AI are those who have not used such technologies before (Tussyadiah and Miller 2019). Regarding user adoption of robots, as is the case with other technologies, the main drivers are perceived usefulness and performance (Bowen and Morosan 2018). However, Gretzel (2011) warns that there is a need to move from research on intentions of use, to research on actual use, use patterns, and nonuse.…”

“…This means that the tourism sector, which for a long time had been immune to this situation, is now at risk. Bowen and Morosan (2018) estimate that 25% of the workforce in hospitality could be replaced by robots in the next decade, thus categorizing the adoption of robots as a paradigm shift. Some traditional functions in tourism (such as the front desk of hotels) could even disappear (Bowen and Morosan 2018).…”