Ultimate Transformation: How will Automation Technologies Disrupt the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industries? SHRM Essay, SMU, Singapore

Essay Assignment Details:

Write an essay for Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) by considering the following article.

This Essay Include:

• Strategic management: Mission and vision of the company;
• Strategic recruiting ;
• Strategy Content: Business, Corporate and Network Level Strategies; Personnel development;
• Strategy Process: Strategy formation, Strategic change, Strategic innovation;
• Organizational Culture and Strategic HRM

The requirements for the assignment are the following:

• You will receive an academic paper discussing contemporary topics in strategic human resource management and you are expected to write a 2,000 word, a critical essay reflecting upon this topic.
• You will identify the key issues/research problems and discuss these in the essay.

Ultimate transformation: How will automation technologies disrupt the travel, tourism and hospitality industries?

Abstract:

Companies from the travel, tourism and hospitality industry have started adopting robots, artificial intelligence and service automation technologies (RAISA) in their operations. Self-check-in kiosks, robotic pool cleaners, delivery robots, robot concierges, chatbots, etc., are used increasingly by tourism companies and transform the ways they create and deliver services.

This paper investigates the impact of RAISA technologies on travel, tourism and hospitality companies – their operations, facilities design, marketing, supply chain management, human resource management, and financial management. The paper emphasises that in the future companies will divide into two large segments – high-tech tourism companies offering standardized cheap robot-delivered services, and high-touch companies, which rely on human employees.

Keywords: robots, artificial intelligence, service automation, self-service technology, chatbots, travel, tourism, hospitality, transformation

1. Introduction

Every generation witnessed technological breakthroughs that revolutionised the tourism industry. In the middle of the 19th century, the train made travel of tourist groups feasible and the first organised trips emerged. In the first half of the 20th century, the car added a great deal of flexibility to the selection of tourist routes and contributed to the democratisation of travel. The jet planes in the second half of the 20th century made long haul destinations accessible and affordable for the working middle class.

2. RAISA technologies research in travel, tourism and hospitality

2.1. Self-service technologies in travel, tourism and hospitality

Research on self-service technologies (e.g. check-in or information kiosks at hotels or airport, ticket machines at train stations, baggage drop off counters and automated biometric fingerprint scanners at airports, self-ordering kiosks and conveyor belts in the restaurant, etc.) in travel, tourism and hospitality has been quite extensive, probably due to the early adoption of this technology in the industry (e.g. Ahn & Seo, 2018; Bogicevic et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2015; Kattara & ElSaid, 2013; Kaushik, Agrawal & Rahman, 2015; Kelly, Lawlor & Mulvey, 2017; Kokkinou & Cranage, 2013; Kucukusta, Heung & Hui, 2014; Neo et al., 2014; Oh, Jeong & Baloglu, 2013; Oh et al., 2016; Wei, Torres & Hua, 2016).

2.2. Artificial intelligence in travel, tourism and hospitality

Artificial intelligence research in travel, tourism and hospitality (outside research on robotics which is reviewed in the next paragraph) has gained momentum. Researchers have applied artificial intelligence (neural networks, machine learning) in forecasting tourism arrivals/demand/expenditure (Law, 2000; Palmer, Montano & Sesé, 2006; Sun et al., 2019) and hotel occupancy (Law, 1998), identification of destination attributes (Santos Silva et al., 2016),
sentiment analysis of online reviews (Kirilenko et al., 2018; Ye, Zhang & Law, 2009), analysis of the impact of online reviews on hotel performance (Phillips et al., 2015), analysis of hotel employee satisfaction (Tian & Pu, 2008), market segmentation (Kim, Wei & Ruys, 2003), forecasting waste generation rates in hotels (Azarmi, Alipour & Oladipo, 2017) or their energy demand (Casteleiro Roca et al., 2018) to name just a few of the numerous directions of research in the field.

3. The pros and cons of RAISA technologies

Like every technology, robots, artificial intelligence and service automation have their advantages and disadvantages compared to human employees (Ivanov, 2017) which make them more or less attractive to travel, tourism and hospitality companies.

4. How will RAISA technologies disrupt the tourism industry?

Figure 1 presents the main directions of the impacts of RAISA technologies in travel, tourism and hospitality companies. RAISA change the way companies operate and influence all the aspects of their value chain – marketing, operations, facilities design and maintenance, human resource management, financial management and supply chain management.

Figure 1. Impacts of RAISA technologies on travel, tourism and hospitality companies

5. Conclusion

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by elaborating the impacts of robotics, artificial intelligence and service automation on travel, tourism and hospitality companies – their operations, human resources, supply chain and financial management, facilities design, marketing.