Service Robots in Hotels in Egypt: Customers' Willingness and Managers' Challenges

Abstract

Dilemmas of staff deficiency or turnover especially in perilous times may be recovered by integrating service robots. In addition, there is continuous and global competition in the daily business environment of the hotel industry. Therefore, the current research aims to shed the light on artificial intelligence (AI) in general and service robots in hotels in Egypt in particular. It also aims to investigate the extent of customers’ willingness towards robots, and to determine the impact of a set of factors on their willingness. This study is considered a descriptive and exploratory one. First, Customers of the hotels provided data, as 46 hotels were chosen using the stratified random sample technique as a representative sample, then, respondents were randomly surveyed and 1200 valid responses were collected and analyzed through a set of statistical tests using the Amos program. Second, data were collected from 30 hotel managers using focus group technique. The results revealed a positive willingness for hotel guests to interact with service robots in different operations. Also, the results emphasized the positive impacts of performance efficacy, anthropomorphism, social influence, and emotions on the hotel customers' willingness towards robots. Conversely, both intrinsic motivation and facilitating conditions were found to have no significant impact. In addition, the focus group results indicated that hotel managers have positive intentions towards integrating robots in their hotels; however, they face many challenges. Finally, the current research provides implications to hotel management for integrating robots that satisfying customers' willingness.