What behavioral beliefs could robot-served hotels focus on to attract potential consumers?

Abstract

Service robots could provide benefits for hotels in terms of productivity and even service quality. However, hotel managers in Spain (and Europe) have not implemented them as yet or are doing so only tentatively. This could be due to the fact that current literature is fragmented (i.e., dominated by hybrid models) and inconclusive and does not provide consistent guidelines for practitioners. This research narrows this gap by showing that a parsimonious application of the Theory of Planned Behavior is useful to predict attitude and buying intention toward robot-served hotels. Through an empirical analysis of 600 consumers in Spain, our findings indicate that hotel managers could focus on intrinsic motivations (enjoyment and challenge). They should also communicate the advantages of hybrid human–robot teams, in which the robots supplement humans instead of substituting them. The anthropomorphism of robots should not be emphasized as it seems to be perceived as a threat. Although utilitarian benefits matter, they seem to have a subordinate salience.