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Review
. 2023 Jul 5;13(7):560.
doi: 10.3390/bs13070560.

Research on the Frontier and Prospect of Service Robots in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry Based on International Core Journals: A Review

Mengxi Chen  1 , Xiaoyu Wang  2 , Rob Law  3   4 , Mu Zhang  5
Affiliations
Review

Research on the Frontier and Prospect of Service Robots in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry Based on International Core Journals: A Review

Mengxi Chen et al. Behav Sci (Basel). .

Abstract

This paper used the mixed research method of bibliometric and content analysis to study 284 studies on service robots in the tourism and hospitality industry collected from the Web of Science database. Results show that research in this field started late, and that the COVID-19 pandemic has promoted the rapid growth of the number of research papers. The International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management has so far published the most number of papers. Numerous scholars from universities in different regions of the world have made significant contributions to the research of service robots, and academic collaborations are relatively common, but there are only very few high-yield authors. Empirical research has been widely favored by researchers, wherein online questionnaire and experimental methods have been frequently used. Multidisciplinary theories have also been cited in related articles, especially on the applications of psychological theories. The research fronts cover four branches focusing on service robots, consumers, human employees, and service environment, with all four parts largely overlapping in content. Finally, the paper discusses prospects for the future research agenda of service robots in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Keywords: bibliometric analysis; service robots; service-dominant logic; tourism and hospitality industry; web of science.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Statistics and trends of annual publications from 2012 to 2023.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Top 16 institutions for publications.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Statistics of subject area of research theory.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Top 11 research theories based on frequency.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Clustering network of keywords for research on service robots in the tourism and hospitality industry ("#" represents the number sign for clustering labels, and the smaller the number after "#", the more keywords it includes in the corresponding cluster).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Relation between the subject research areas under S-D logic.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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