Themes: A critical review of robot research and future research opportunities; The effects of perception of robot appearance and service context on usage intention; Application of robots in retailing and tourism; Ethics of robotics applications; Employees’ perspective and robot design.

About the Conference

Robots are machines designed to execute a series of actions, assisting or even replacing human beings to perform repetitive work and dangerous tasks. Nevertheless, the use of robots presents both advantages and disadvantages. For example, in the service industry, courtesy is an essential requirement for service professionals. Human service providers are expected to maintain good emotional control at all times when dealing with discerning customers. Robots offer an alternative to provide consistent responses to customers’ requests and inquiries. However, as widely known, human interactions are important in tourism and retail industries, and thus challenges are expected when adopting robots. Furthermore, the deployment of robots may create unemployment on some occasions, thereby resulting in a reduction of necessary human interactions (Manthiou & Klaus, 2022).

With the increasing use of robots across different industries, it is noteworthy that relatively few studies have been conducted on the application of robots in the service industry. Robotics has been one of the hottest research topics in recent years. In academia, scholars have used quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods in their robot-related research. Moreover, well-established theories such as theory of planned behavior, technology acceptance model, and social presence theory have been widely applied (Ye et al., 2022). There remains room for alternative approaches and emerging theories to augment investigations in this field, with Artificial Intelligence Acceptance Theory and Experiential Theory becoming increasingly popular, supplemented with case studies and observational methods.

The latest robotics applications and developments will be discussed and shared in the proposed platforms of the conference, facilitating dissemination of knowledge, promotion of advances in the academic literature, and knowledge transfer among researchers, scholars, industry practitioners, and students. This project will equip local academics with a comprehensive understanding of robotics applications in both theory and practice through a two-day hybrid conference. The conference includes 12 plenary talks and four parallel sessions. It provides a research platform for both academics and researchers to strengthen their research capabilities in the emerging field of robotics applications in hospitality, tourism, and retail sectors.