Enhancing hospitality experience with service robots: the mediating role of rapport building

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the influence of service robot attributes on customers’ hospitality experience from the perspective of relationship building. Through literature review and a preliminary study with in-depth interviews, a conceptual framework was developed. A scenario-based experiment and questionnaire survey were designed to test the model. The results indicate that robots’ being perceived as humanlike or intelligent positively affects customer-robot rapport building and the hospitality experience. Additionally, customer-employee rapport building was found to mediate the relationship between robot attributes and the hospitality experience, but customer-robot rapport building was not. Based on these findings, theoretical contributions and practical implications were discussed.

本研究从关系建构的角度探讨服务机器人属性对顾客接待体验的影响.通过文献综述和深入访谈的初步研究，建立了概念框架.设计了基于场景的实验和问卷调查对模型进行测试.结果表明，机器人被视为像人的或智能的，对顾客-机器人融洽关系构建和顾客款待体验积极影响.此外，顾客-员工融洽关系构建在机器人属性与款待体验之间发挥中介的作用，但顾客-机器人融洽构建却没有.在此基上，讨论了理论贡献和实际意义.

KEYWORDS:

• Service robot attributes
• hospitality
• experience
• rapport building

Acknowledgement

I would like to give special thanks to Professor Cathy Hsu at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, for her suggestions and comments.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China [WMYC20181-023];the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2722019PY018];National Social Science Fund of China [19CGL031];