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The application of Robots, Artificial Intelligence, and Service Automation in the Egyptian Tourism and Hospitality Sector (Possibilities, Obstacles, Pros, and Cons)

Article

Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

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Abstract

Robots (R), artificial intelligence (AI), and service automation (SA) (RAISA) technologies are greatly applied in the tourism and hospitality industry around the globe. Research on this area is getting momentum, however, investigating the topic in the Egyptian tourism and hospitality industry has been fairly neglected. This study aims to analyze the application of RAISA technologies in travel agencies and hotels in Egypt. The researchers adopted an in-depth semi-structured interview method and analyze the qualitative data collected from a sample of twenty IT managers and IT assistant managers in travel agencies and hotels. The results confirmed that there are no robots' applications in the Egyptian tourism and hospitality sector. However, there are some AI (chatbots, AI search platforms) and SA technologies adopted (digital kiosks, virtual reality, mobile check-in/out, smart rooms). The main obstacles of applying RAISA are cost and the absence of qualified human resources. From the interviewees' viewpoint, the most significant pros of RAISA are increasing the quality of services provided, improving performance, reducing human mistakes, and overcoming problems related to employees' mental and psychological state. While the cons are huge investments required and decreasing the essential human interactions between customers and employees. Additionally, the interviewees declared that the tourism and hospitality sectors are witnessing significant technological changes in Egypt vision 2030.

DOI

10.21608/jaauth.2021.60834.1126

Keywords

Robots, artificial intelligence, Service automation, tourism, Hospitality

Authors

First Name

Reham

Last Name

Touni

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Hotel Management Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Minia University

Email

reham.toni@mu.edu.eg

City

Minia

Orcid

-

First Name

aya

Last Name

Magdy

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Tourism Studies Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Minia University

Email

aya.mohammed@mu.edu.eg

City

minia

Orcid

-

Volume

19

Article Issue

3

Related Issue

20824

Issue Date

2020-12-01

Receive Date

2020-05-27

Publish Date

2020-12-01

Page Start

269

Page End

290

Print ISSN

1687-1863

Online ISSN

2682-4612

Link

https://jaauth.journals.ekb.eg/article_151670.html

Detail API

https://jaauth.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=151670

Order

14

Type

Original Article

Type Code

997

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Journal of Association of Arab Universities for Tourism and Hospitality

Publication Link

https://jaauth.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

The application of Robots, Artificial Intelligence, and Service Automation in the Egyptian Tourism and Hospitality Sector (Possibilities, Obstacles, Pros, and Cons)

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023