Effects of service robots in the hospitality and tourism sectors: A critical review and future research directions

Abstract

Service robots provide hospitality and tourism organizations significant technological abilities to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency by replacing human labor. This study aims to comprehensively review the recent empirical literature on the effects or outcomes of service robots in leading hospitality and tourism journals, ascertain the critical research gaps and limitations, and propose new research directions. The literature review of the positive effects of service robots showed that they can enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, engagement, experiences, and perceived stability of service, mainly in hotels. By contrast, the literature review of the negative effects of service robots indicated that consumers are concerned about the dehumanization of services, financial risks, and lower service efficiency, mainly in the case of restaurants and food service providers. As there are critical limitations in the existing literature, this study showed that all the related studies focus only on customers and the market aspect of businesses. Moreover, studies relied heavily on external sources of customer data and had limited sectoral scope since they mainly focused on hotels and restaurants. To fill in the research gaps, this study highlighted the need for future research on the employee and organizational aspects of businesses. It urges researchers to investigate the employee outcomes and collaborations with service robots and to address the critical issues of financial investment results, technology management, and the role of service robots during the COVID-19 pandemic.