Exploring the influence of culture on tourist experiences with robots in service delivery environment

Abstract

Robots and artificial intelligence represent a newly emerging trend in tourism and hospitality. However, studies examining how cultural perceptions influence tourists’ experiences interacting with service robots are lacking. In response to the industrial trend, the experiential components of robot-staffed hotels are assessed in this study. A qualitative approach is adopted to compare the semantic networks of Japanese and non-Japanese tourists’ online reviews, using 1,498 reviews from nine robot-staffed hotels in Japan. The results indicate that hotel guests’ interaction with robots is one of the main experiential components in robot-staffed hotels. The semantic network analysis results demonstrate noticeable differences, with Japanese reviews demonstrating more emotional responses to human-robot interaction and non-Japanese reviews valuing the functional and technical aspects of robot-provided services more.