Guests’ perceptions of robot concierge and their adoption intentions

Purpose: The hotel industry has witnessed an increasing number of service automation through service robots such as robot concierges. However, few studies have documented how to identify how hotel guests perceive a robot concierge for their service encounter. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of robot concierges on hotel guests’ attitudes and adoption intentions of robot concierges. Design/methodology/approach: This study investigated the effects of robot concierges’ morphology and their level of interactivity with guests at different levels of hotel service on guests’ attitudes and their intentions to adopt robot concierges. To achieve the study’s objectives, this study conducted a 3 × 2 × 3 between-subjects factorial design experiment. Moreover, the survey asked questions about subjects’ preferences of their service encounters (e.g. human employees, robot concierges and/or no preference) and reasons for their selected preference. Findings: The results demonstrated that the robot’s morphology significantly influenced guests’ attitudes toward robot concierges. In particular, the caricatured robot was the most preferred morphology of robot concierges. The findings showed that even if guests had favorable attitudes toward robot concierges, they preferred human employees to robot concierges because of humans’ sincere and genuine interactions. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by investigating the causal impacts of the morphology of robot concierges, level of interactivity and level of hotel service on guests’ attitudes toward robot concierges. The thematic analysis of service encounter preference provides an overview of the factors that guests expect for their service encounters in a hotel setting.