Tourism & Hospitality Students’ Perception towards the Use of Robots in Service Organizations: A Qualitative study in India

Abstract

The study examined tourism and hospitality (T&H) students’ perception of the use of service robots in organizations. Using purposive sampling, 80 students of T&H programs were interviewed online, and data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings showed that a majority of respondents had shown a favorable perception of robots. While Indian students think that robots may offer several benefits for organizations, T&H entrepreneurs must make provisions to deal with the obstacles associated with robot adoption. The major challenges are employee resistance, technological glitches, services with no human touch, significant operational costs, human-robot interaction, cost of training & repair, and robot-friendly organizational design. They also believe that service organizations should balance the work of employees and robots in such a way where technologies should perform repetitive tasks while employees could deliver warm and personalized services. They prefer humanoid robots in human-touch service industries to humanize services. The study also recommends that educational institutions must incorporate courses on modern technologies into academic programs to meet future challenges and job requirements of the service sector. The findings have several implications, and further research directions are suggested.