Is robot hotel a future trend? Exploring the incentives, barriers and customers? purchase intention for robot hotel stays

To explore whether robot hotels will be a future trend, the main purpose of this study is to increase understanding of the incentives and barriers that influence customers' purchase intention (PI) for robot hotel stays. This study also explores how customers' tech-savviness moderates the causal relationships between incentives, barriers, and PI. Hotel customers in Taiwan were surveyed with a 6-part questionnaire; 408 responses were collected using convenience sampling. The data is analyzed with structural equation modeling (SEM). The research results indicate that incentives and barriers impact respondents' PI for robot hotel stays, with techsavviness serving as moderators. This indicates that particular types of individuals (e.g., individuals more comfortable with technology and/or change) are more susceptible to the idea of robot hotels and are more willing to pay to stay at robot hotels. Other individual types may require additional incentives before choosing to patronize robot hotels.