DETERMINANTS OF CONSUMER’ PREFERENCES FOR ROBOT SERVICE HOTEL: AN EXPERIMENT AMONG VIETNAMESE YOUNG TRAVELLERS

Abstract

The study intends to determine prominent antecedents of Vietnamese young travelers’ intentions to book robot service hotels during and after the health pandemic. The study aims to leverage the context to uncover the guests’ preferences toward a secure option when a health crisis is salient. A quantitative research method was employed to collect qualified data. The extended TAM theory was employed to develop research hypotheses. SPSS and AMOS version 24 were used to analyze data and confirm the research hypotheses. The study found that guests’ booking intention toward robot service hotels during the health pandemic played a mediation role in linking the influence of social distancing concerns, subjective threat norms, perceived trust, and consumer cosmopolitanism on their intentions after the health pandemic. The study provides a valuable understanding of the determinants of Vietnamese young travelers’ preferences for robot-service hotels. Moreover, the study highlights the significance of situation in deciding guests’ intentions, and thus it is strongly recommended that practitioners take context into consideration when sharpening their strategies.

Keywords

• robot-service hotel
• booking intention
• social distancing concerns
• subjective threat norms
• perceived trust
• consumer cosmopolitanism