Impact of AI-powered Robotics and Automation on Travel and Tourism

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The impact of the robotics and
automation in the travel and tourism
industry

Contents
Title............................................................................................................................. 2
Brief Introduction.........................................................................................................2
Research Question or Hypothesis...............................................................................4
Aims and Objectives................................................................................................... 4
Rationale..................................................................................................................... 5
Literature Review........................................................................................................ 6
Research Methodology...............................................................................................8
Research type......................................................................................................... 8
Study population......................................................................................................8
Data collection methods and instruments................................................................9
Data analysis methods............................................................................................9
Ethical consideration............................................................................................... 9
Timeline.....................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................11
Appendix................................................................................................................... 12
pg. 1

Title
The impact of the robotics and automation in the travel and tourism industry
Brief Introduction
Technology is a vital part of the business operating under the travel industry along
with their customers. The reason behind this is very simple as it helps in enhancing
various aspects like the business operations, customer experiences etc. But form the
business point of view, it is very crucial for them to adopt the new technologies that
keep on emerging so that they get an edge over their competitors and do not fall
behind in the race. In the article, various new emerging technologies are discussed
which are popular among the businesses in the travel industry (Bowen and Morosan,
2018).
90% of the travellers worldwide concluded that standard travelling process is a very
outdated option in today's time. Expectations for receiving the personalised travelling
services is becoming a necessity rather than the luxury. Everyone wants to get a
unique experience wherever they go regardless of the fact that is a fun trip or the
business trip (Alexis, 2017). Many brands in the travel and tourism industry have
adopted the personalisation mechanism, for example, Delta flights came up with the
account-specific messaging with the corporate clients concerning the exclusive
benefits. Even the flight attendants are provided with a tool which enables the in the
providing the personalised services to the corporate guests, comprising the client
recognition, assistance along with the down-line fight and gate information (Bowen
and Morosan, 2018).
Due to the change in the habits of the tourists, the travel industry is actively
introducing the robotics technologies in their business. Majority of the travellers
demanded the self-service opportunities (Alexis, 2017). It motivates the business
houses to install the artificially intelligent robots experts for performing the activity.
Even in the airports, the technology is been installed which enables the travellers to
get their boarding passes through a machine which saves them from the long
queues. Meet 1A-TA, the travel retailer's assistance is the robot installed by the
travel industry which helps in the creation of the travellers profile based on the liking
of the traveller, characteristics of the traveller's personality based on the random
pictures that he chooses. In this way, people don't need to wait for the travel
pg. 2

consultant to get free to give you suggestions for your next holiday and bang you are
already sorted (Alexis, 2017).
pg. 3

Research Question or Hypothesis
How the introduction of the robotics along with automation have affected the travel
and tourism industry?
Aims and Objectives
 To learn about the robotics technology in the travel and tourism industry.
 To analyse the effect of the robotics technology in the travel and tourism industry
 To analyse the effect of the automation in the various sectors of the travel and
tourism industry especially in the airports and travel agencies.
pg. 4

Rationale
They’re cute, work hard to glee the customers, and even they want any of the
customer benefits. Well the newest workers in the questions are well not exactly- are
robots. Robots have marked their arrival and now they are here to stay. In the last
few years, everyone has witnessed the significant progress in the field of artificial
intelligence, automation in the services as well as robotics. In today's scenario,
travellers can find them almost everywhere like on the scene, holding and carrying
luggage, at the help desks, mixing drinks and many more services. It is reliable to
say that the face of the customer service is literally changing in the travel industry.
Therefore it becomes very important to know how the advancement in the robotics
technology as well automation is changing the perceptive of the customers towards
the service delivery and how they have multiplied the effectiveness of the service
delivery in the travel and tourism industry. This research will help the travellers as
well as the service provider's to get an insight into the new modes of service delivery
and to know how much effective and efficient it is.
pg. 5

Literature Review
As per Ivanov and Webster (2019), subsequent to the industrial revolution,
technological advancement crossed the threshold of the services industry providing
prospects for the automation in the service sector. Automation signifies the
procedure of deploying the machinery for the completion of the “prearranged or
reprogrammable structure of activities and tasks” in the service supply. Initial
examples of service automation encompassed automatic teller machines (ATMs),
conveyors, store self-check-out, and vending machines. Additional development of
information and communication technologies tips to sustained advancement of client
experience and service e ciency. For an instance, self-service check-in kiosksffi
installed it the airports may countenance travellers to decrease the waiting period in
the airport, ensure to the gate sooner, and, therefore, results in the improved
customer experience.
As stated by Ivanov (2019), travel technology is termed as the application of the
information technology or the communications technology, in the tourism, travel and
the hospitality industry. Some examples of the travel technology are flight tracking or
booking price tracking or journey planning etc. Although travel implies locomotion,
travel technology was basically concerned with the reservations systems through the
online mode but now it is been more inclusive in nature and indulges the broader
tourism sector along with the subset of the travel industry i.e. the hospitality industry.
The technology in the travel industry also includes a virtual tour as well as virtual tour
technologies. Travel technology is also described as the e-tourism, or e-travel etc.
Today everyone agrees on the importance of the travel and tourism industry and
also how the advancement in the technology has influenced as well as reshaped the
travel and tourism industry in almost every aspect of the services like the way we
travel, the way we travel, the way we plan and almost everything. It is been seen that
almost 74% of the travellers like to plan up their own vacations, which means
automation is something which is needed to be implemented by the travel industry
along with the other advancements (Webster and Ivanov, 2019).
The usage of robots within the travel and hospitality industry is flattering in more
commonplace, with usages vacillating from artificially intelligent chatbots which are
designed to succour with the customer service process, with the help of the robot
assistants, positioned to advance guests’ experience in the hotel.
pg. 6

Modern robots can be of two types i.e. either fully autonomous or semi-autonomous
and might make use of artificial intelligence (AI) along with the speech recognition
technology. Now With that being discussed, most robots are automated to perform
précised tasks with great exactness, with an instance being the industrial robots
deployed in the factories or production department (Webster and Ivanov, 2019).
pg. 7

Research Methodology
Research type
In order to carry on with the project, both the qualitative as well as quantitative
research is been conducted.
Qualitative research is referred to the exploratory research and is often used to gain
an understanding of the underlying reasons along with the motivations and opinions.
It also helps in getting insight concerning the research problems as well as in the
development of the ideas or the research hypothesis for further conducting the
quantitative research (Ivanov, 2017). It is also used for knowing and understanding
the trends in the opinions as well as in the market and helps in getting deep into the
topic. There are various semi or unstructured techniques and method that are used
for conducting the qualitative research and some of the common methods of the
qualitative research is a focus group, participation or observations, individual
interviews etc. (Ivanov, 2017).
Quantitative research is used for identifying the problem with the help of the numeric
data which is easily converted into the statistical form which is further used by the
companies to take the decisions. It is also used for quantifying the attitudes as well
as opinions, behaviours and all the other defined variables and helps in the
generalising of the result from the larger sample population (Bell et al., 2018). In
order to conduct the quantitative research, data collection method that is put to use
is much more structured as compared to the quantitative data collection method.
There are numerous ways for the collection of the qualitative data like the online or
offline surveys, mobile surveys, questionnaire, interviews i.e. both face to face as
well as telephonic interviews, longitudinal studies etc. (Bell et al., 2018).
Study population
In order to conduct the research to get an insight into the effect of the robotics as
well as automation in the travel and tourism industry, two samples are chosen, i.e.
the first sample consists of the 15 travellers who usually travel on a daily basis and
the 15 employees of the tour, travel and hospitality organisations. Two samples are
chosen so as to know the perspective of both the service providers as well as both
the service receivers and how they are impacted by the introduction of the robotics
as well as automation in the travel and tourism industry (Bernard, 2017).
pg. 8

Data collection methods and instruments
For the collection of data from both of the groups, the method that was employed is
the questionnaire method along with the interview method. The questionnaire is
been prepared to collect the information from the employees of the hospitality and
travels sector and interview method is been used to collect the data from the
customers who travel on the daily basis and are familiar with the robotics technology
along with the automated processes (Smith, 2015).
Data analysis methods
Data analysis is described as the process of the systematically applied tools and
techniques which will help to describe, illustrating, condensing and evaluating the
data. In this research, the data analysis method that will be applied is the graphs and
charts which will help in the graphical analysis of the data. Also in order to analyse
the qualitative data factor analysis is been used (Smith, 2015).
Ethical consideration
The ethical considerations in the research process are critical. Ethics are described
as the norms or the standards that help in distinguishing what is right and wrong.
The ethical consideration to be considered is data fabrication and should only put to
use true information. The second consideration is the confidentiality of the data
collected i.e. the data should not be shared without the consent of the respondent.
The handling of these ethical issues has a great impact on the research (Smith,
2015).
pg. 9

Timeline
Research plan
1. Identification of the topic i.e. first step in the research plan is the identification
of the research area which should in accordance with the personal as well as
the professional interest of the researcher (Coolican, 2017).
2. Defining the aims as well as objectives for the research which should be in
accordance with the research approach and it helps the mentors in providing
the way to them to move ahead (Coolican, 2017).
3. Conduction of the literature review is one of the longest parts of any research
but in the practical approach the process of the literature review is started way
before the research is actually been started even before the objectives are set
so as to check on the availability of enough data on the topic selected
(Coolican, 2017).
4. Research methodology: selection of the research methodology means the
mode of the data collection with the help of the tools available. The tool is
been selected by analysing both the pros and cons of all the available modes
(Coolican, 2017).
5. Primary data collection: to collect the primary data, a lot of the preparations is
been required and since the data size is small, the questionnaire, as well as
the interview method, is put to use and there is no need of the pilot study
(Coolican, 2017).
6. Data analysis is done so as to achieve the research aims as well as
objectives and is considered one of the most important parts of the research.
There are various tools and techniques available for the conduction of the
data (Coolican, 2017).
7. Finding and conclusions: the final step of the research is achieving the set
aims and objectives of the research. In conclusion, the gist of the project is
been mentioned (Coolican, 2017).
pg. 10

References
 Alexis, P., 2017. R-Tourism: Introducing the Potential Impact of Robotics and
Service Automation in Tourism. Ovidius University Annals, Series Economic
Sciences, 17(1).
 Bell, E., Bryman, A. and Harley, B., 2018. Business research methods. Oxford
university press.
 Bernard, H.R., 2017. Research methods in anthropology: Qualitative and
quantitative approaches. Rowman & Littlefield.
 Bowen, J. and Morosan, C., 2018. Beware hospitality industry: the robots are
coming. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 10(6), pp.726-733.
 Coolican, H., 2017. Research methods and statistics in psychology. Psychology
Press.
 Ivanov, S. and Webster, C., 2019. What should robots do? A comparative
analysis of industry professionals, educators and tourists. In Information and
Communication Technologies in Tourism 2019 (pp. 249-262). Springer, Cham.
 Ivanov, S.H., 2017. Robonomics-principles, benefits, challenges, solutions.
 Ivanov, S.H., 2019. Ultimate Transformation: How Will Automation Technologies
Disrupt the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industries?. Zeitschrift für
Tourismuswissenschaft, 11(1).
 Smith, J.A. ed., 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research
methods. Sage.
 Webster, C. and Ivanov, S.H., 2019. Robotics, artificial intelligence, and the
evolving nature of work. Business Transformation in Data Driven Societies,
Palgrave-MacMillan (forthcoming).

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