Abstract:
1. Introduction
Young tourists play an important role in consuming tourism and hospitality
services across the globe. They interact with the service providers in the
pre-, during and later stages of consuming the services using chatbots.
These chatbots are powered by Artificial Intelligence and can interact with
tourists for basic and advanced communication. The research aims to
explore the perspectives of young tourists towards using Artificial
Intelligence powered Chatbots interact with service providers.
2. Research Methodology
Being explorative mix-method research, it used both interview and survey
as data collection tools from 125 young tourists using convenience
sampling method. Descriptive analysis and thematic content analysis were
adopted for data analysis.
3. Findings and Discussion
The quantitative analysis indicates that most young tourists are keen on
using AI- powered chatbots. Qualitative analysis revealed that chatbots
may be useful for different purposes, but specific requirements can only be
fulfilled with the help of human interaction. Respondents also believe that
AI-powered chatbots are a tool for collecting tourists’ information, which
can be used by the tourism and hospitality service providers.
4. Conclusion and Implications
The implication of the study is for the service providers to understand the
perspective of young tourists and employ AI chatbots on their websites.
Young tourists feel that it is useful in the personalization of services,
reducing operation costs, travel companions, and tourists’ data collection.
Most young tourists feel that AI Chatbot is an alternative to 24/7 customer
support.
