IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/toueco/v26y2020i7p1065-1085.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Robots in tourism: A research agenda for tourism economics

Author

Listed:
  • Stanislav Ivanov

    (Varna University of Management, Bulgaria)

  • Craig Webster

    (5666Ball State University, USA)

Abstract

The technological advances in artificial intelligence and robotics allow the massive introduction of service robots by travel, tourism and hospitality companies. While research on service robots in tourism is gaining momentum, the economic aspects of robots’ adoption have been quite neglected. This article critically evaluates the current research on the economic aspects of service robots in tourism and the implications of robots for tourism economics as a field of research in three domains: tourism supply, tourism demand and destination management. In that way, the article delves into the economics of service robots from the perspectives of the tourism companies, the tourists and the destinations as a whole. On the basis of this discussion, the article identifies various research directions and develops specific research questions related to the adoption of robots in tourism that need to be answered by future research in tourism economics.

Suggested Citation

  • Stanislav Ivanov & Craig Webster, 2020. "Robots in tourism: A research agenda for tourism economics," Tourism Economics, , vol. 26(7), pages 1065-1085, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:26:y:2020:i:7:p:1065-1085
    DOI: 10.1177/1354816619879583
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354816619879583
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1354816619879583?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Farrell, Joseph & Klemperer, Paul, 2007. "Coordination and Lock-In: Competition with Switching Costs and Network Effects," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: Mark Armstrong & Robert Porter (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 31, pages 1967-2072, Elsevier.
    2. Carlos Barros & Fernando Alves, 2004. "Productivity in the tourism industry," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 10(3), pages 215-225, October.
    3. Cohen, Scott A. & Hopkins, Debbie, 2019. "Autonomous vehicles and the future of urban tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 33-42.
    4. Webster, Craig & Ivanov, Stanislav, 2014. "Transforming competitiveness into economic benefits: Does tourism stimulate economic growth in more competitive destinations?," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 137-140.
    5. Ivanov Stanislav, 2019. "Ultimate transformation: How will automation technologies disrupt the travel, tourism and hospitality industries?," Zeitschrift für Tourismuswissenschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 25-43, April.
    6. Tussyadiah, Iis & Miller, Graham, 2019. "Nudged by a robot: Responses to agency and feedback," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Linda Low, 2000. "Economics of Information Technology and the Media," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 4075, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stanislav Ivanov & Craig Webster & Faruk Seyitoğlu, 2023. "Humans and/or robots? Tourists’ preferences towards the humans–robots mix in the service delivery system," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 17(1), pages 195-231, March.
    2. Yurii Kyrylov & Viktoriia Hranovska & Viktoriia Boiko & Aleksy Kwilinski & Liudmyla Boiko, 2020. "International Tourism Development in the Context of Increasing Globalization Risks: On the Example of Ukraine’s Integration into the Global Tourism Industry," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-18, December.
    3. Luis J. Callarisa-Fiol & Miguel Ángel Moliner-Tena & Rosa Rodríguez-Artola & Javier Sánchez-García, 2023. "Entrepreneurship innovation using social robots in tourism: a social listening study," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(8), pages 2945-2971, November.
    4. Yunsik Kim, 2023. "Examining the Impact of Frontline Service Robots Service Competence on Hotel Frontline Employees from a Collaboration Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-19, May.
    5. Zhong, Lina & Verma, Rohit & Wei, Wenqi & Morrsion, Alastair M. & Yang, Liyu, 2022. "Multi-stakeholder perspectives on the impacts of service robots in urban hotel rooms," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stanislav Ivanov & Faruk Seyitoğlu & Martina Markova, 2020. "Hotel managers’ perceptions towards the use of robots: a mixed-methods approach," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 505-535, December.
    2. Stanislav Hristov Ivanov & Craig Webster & Elitza Stoilova & Daniel Slobodskoy, 2022. "Biosecurity, crisis management, automation technologies and economic performance of travel, tourism and hospitality companies – A conceptual framework," Tourism Economics, , vol. 28(1), pages 3-26, February.
    3. Lv, Xingyang & Liu, Yue & Luo, Jingjing & Liu, Yuqing & Li, Chunxiao, 2021. "Does a cute artificial intelligence assistant soften the blow? The impact of cuteness on customer tolerance of assistant service failure," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    4. Ivanov, Stanislav Hristov & Webster, Craig & Stoilova, Elitza & Slobodskoy, Daniel, 2020. "Biosecurity, crisis management, automation technologies, and economic performance of travel, tourism and hospitality companies – a conceptual framework," SocArXiv 2hx6f, Center for Open Science.
    5. Bouckaert, Jan & Degryse, Hans & Provoost, Thomas, 2010. "Enhancing market power by reducing switching costs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 131-133, November.
    6. Lam, W., 2015. "Switching Costs in Two-sided Markets," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015024, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    7. Christian Dahl Winther, 2007. "Optimal research effort and product differentiation in network industries," Economics Working Papers 2007-19, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    8. Aouad, Marion, 2021. "An Examination of the Intracorrelation of Family Health Insurance," IZA Discussion Papers 14541, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Uglješa Stankov & Ulrike Gretzel, 2020. "Tourism 4.0 technologies and tourist experiences: a human-centered design perspective," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 477-488, September.
    10. Jidong Zhou, 2011. "Reference Dependence and Market Competition," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 1073-1097, December.
    11. Long Qian & Yunjie Zhou & Ying Sun, 2023. "Regional Differences, Distribution Dynamics, and Convergence of the Green Total Factor Productivity of China’s Cities under the Dual Carbon Targets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-26, August.
    12. Gábor Kézdi & Gergely Csorba, 2013. "Estimating Consumer Lock-In Effects from Firm-Level Data," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 431-452, September.
    13. Stylos, Nikolaos & Vassiliadis, Chris A. & Bellou, Victoria & Andronikidis, Andreas, 2016. "Destination images, holistic images and personal normative beliefs: Predictors of intention to revisit a destination," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 40-60.
    14. Walter Beckert & Paolo Siciliani, 2018. "Protecting Vulnerable Consumers in "Switching Markets"," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 1808, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
    15. Mariana O. Silva & Claudio R. Lucinda, 2017. "Switching costs and the extent of potential competition in Brazilian banking," Economia, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics], vol. 17(1), pages 117-128.
    16. Ridley, David B. & Zhang, Su, 2017. "Regulation of price increases," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 186-213.
    17. repec:hal:journl:hal-00808420 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Johannes Johnen, 2019. "Automatic‐renewal contracts with heterogeneous consumer inertia," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 765-786, November.
    19. Zhao, Tianshu & Matthews, Kent & Murinde, Victor, 2013. "Cross-selling, switching costs and imperfect competition in British banks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5452-5462.
    20. Mark J. Tremblay, 2019. "Platform Competition and Endogenous Switching Costs," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 537-559, December.
    21. Dunn, Abe & Shapiro, Adam Hale, 2015. "Physician payments under health care reform," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 89-105.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:toueco:v:26:y:2020:i:7:p:1065-1085. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.