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Artificial intelligent towards hotels’
competitive advantage. An exploratory
study from the UAE
Samer Ali Hussein Al-shami, Abdullah Al Mamun, Elsadig Musa Ahmed and
Nurulizwa Rashid
Abstract
Purpose –Hotel industry is witnessing a radical change as a result of technology interaction such as
artificial intelligence (AI) in service tasks. As a result of this transformation, the pattern of service delivery
based on human interaction has been changed to digital interaction. This brought opportunities to the
hotels industry and consolidate its competitive advantage. However, the understanding gap still existed
in both practical implementation and literature, especially in developing countries. Therefore, this paper
aims to explore how hotels use AI to carry out services tasks.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors adopted the qualitative research method through Semi
interviews. The sample was purposively selected from five 5-star hotels in the UAE, meanwhile, the
managers were the targeted respondents.
Findings –Through content analysis, the authors find that the UAE hotels use AI in managing trip
planning, reception service and room services. The authors also find that there are four key drivers that
improve the performance of AI, which include AI infrastructure flexibility, strategic alignment,
management and skills. Finally, the authors found four indicators of the impact of AI on hotels, which are
quality, cost and market share and customers satisfaction.
Originality/value –This study is one of few studies that explored the use of AI in the hotels industry and
discussed how AI influence several aspects of hotels performance and helped them to attain their
competitive advantage. This study is also one of few studies and the first study in UAE to explore the key
drivers of AI performance in UAE hotels.
Keywords Performance, UAE, Artificial intelligence, Hotel
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Technology is an essential tool that facilitates daily activities where they have become
ubiquitous to human life. Recently, the prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) has become
increasingly popular, as we are surrounded by AI, from drones to virtual helpers, and
programmatic translation provision (Carrio et al., 2017). A concrete definition of AI is
deemed impossible as this notion is vast and dynamic. AI’s basic definition is established
based on two key components, namely, autonomy and adaptiveness. Although AI systems
are not rapidly developing, continuous growth is charted annually. Many industries have
experienced significant changes from these innovations and scholars believe that AI will
substantially impact almost every aspect of human life.
AI facilitates specific tasks for employees in the hotel industry including gathering,
analysing and using large statistical data for future forecasts to identify guests’ preference
and make their vacations more comfortable. Over the years, hotel operators adopt various
digital strategies to increase profitability, efficiency, management decision-making and
Samer Ali Hussein Al-shami
is based at the Sana’a
University, Sana’a, Yemen
and Universiti Teknikal
Malaysia –Main Campus,
Durian Tunggal, Malaysia.
Abdullah Al Mamun is
based at the UCSI
Graduate Business School,
UCSI University, Sarawak,
Malaysia.
Elsadig Musa Ahmed is
based at MMU,
Manchester, UK.
Nurulizwa Rashid is based
at Universiti Teknikal
Malaysia –Main Campus,
Durian Tunggal, Malaysia.
Received 17 January 2021
Revised 12 June 2021
Accepted 5 September 2021
DOI 10.1108/FS-01-2021-0014 ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1463-6689 jFORESIGHT j
boost quality, reinforcing customer loyalty (Verganti et al., 2020). Previous work in the field
of tourism and hospitality technologies centres on self-service users and the role of
technology in improving service quality. These studies were relatively general where hotel
specialisations and divisions are not relevant factors. Larger hotels or hotel chains in
developed countries tend to be a popular focus, eliminating research on both large hotels in
developing countries and smaller hotels worldwide. The hotel marketplace is competitive and
hotels are struggling to achieve competitive advantage by offering unique differentiation.
Many studies have shown that both hotel guests and managers can take advantage of hotel
technology. Several researchers were interested in getting an insight into the hotel
industry’s future. Jasonos and Mccormick (2017) forecast the future of the hospitality
business restaurant where business experts were interviewed. The authors investigate how
smart technology will evolve within the hospitality field by 2025. Technologies are widely
used in restaurant and hotel sectors, offering self-service restaurants and digital hotel
receptions. The study concludes that the hospitality industry will continue to use technology
and deliver modern and user-friendly facilities would be needed.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution has greatly influenced various aspects of society, including
how companies operate. Studies exploring AI innovations are becoming more prominent
where researchers focus on investigating the technological impact and the performance of
hotel services. Considering this, Bowen and Whalen (2017), identify the following four trends
in technology: big data, social media, online communities and sharing economy. They
discussed the impact these trends have on hospitality and tourism, which raised implications
for managers. Ivanov and Webster (2017) conducted their study on tourism and hospitality
industries and the implementation of robots and service automation where AI and robotics
were found to have a profound impact on hotels and restaurants. Another research provides
a glimpse of the current companies in tourism and accommodation, gauging whether the
adoption of robots and automated services is considered (Tussyadiah and Park, 2018).
Several previous studies centres on the effect of technology on customer engagement,
guest satisfaction, use of self-service technologies and AI understanding, however, the
relationship between AI technology and luxury brand identity remains minimal (Naumov,
2019). Despite few studies on AI in the hotel industry have been conducted such as
Jasonos and Mccormick (2017),Ivanov and Webster (2017),Tussyadiah and Park (2018),
most of the paid attention on AI adoption and describe the future industry rather than
providing a clear understanding about the use of AI technologies in hotels and how they
affect several aspects of hotels services. In addition, most of the past studies conducted in
developed countries. Therefore, this research explores the drivers, usage and impact of AI
in the hospitality industry, particularly in UAE hotels, one of the developing countries. For
this purpose, the following three research questions have been formulated as outlined
below:
RQ1. What are the drivers of using AI technologies for the provision of hotel services
among hotel operators in the UAE?
RQ2. How are AI technologies adopted for the provision of hotel services among hotel
operators in the UAE?
RQ3. What are the impacts of using AI technologies for the provision of hotel services
among hotel operators in the UAE?
Artificial intelligence technology in the hotel industry
Hospitality is the main source of the country’s GDP where hotels play a key role in
transforming this industry. With a large number of travellers from all around the world, hotels
are eager to maximize their profitability and market share by offering innovative
personalized services and products (Richard, 2017). Each hotel provides a different
jFORESIGHT j
experience to guests, thereby, keeping up with the latest technologies and is crucial.
The hospitality industry develops technology interaction through AI to improve service
quality and operation efficiency to meet customers expectation in both quality and price.
Thus, innovation assumes the role of a key driver in building the industry’s competitive
advantage. The role of AI in hotels can be expounded via Clayton Christensen’s
perspective of disruptive innovation (King and Baatartogtokh, 2015). There are the following
four main elements in the disruption theory: market leaders are improving on a sustained
innovation trajectory; they fulfil customer needs; they are capable of responding to
disruptive threats; officers end up wallowing due to disruption. On other word, once the
disruptive product gains a foothold in new or low-end markets, the disruptors are on a path
that will ultimately crush the incumbents (Christensen and Raynor, 2013).
There are several aspects of disruption in the hotel industry including online travel agencies
and accommodation platforms. The third-party services offered by travel agencies such as
booking and reservations, as well as tours and holiday packages are replaced with online
resources (Al-Shami et al., 2021). The advent of mobile technology promoted the use of AI
technologies (Borra
`set al., 2014), as AI can perform things that are too difficult or risky for
human persons besides quickly automating activities. AI influences the overall travel
industry and various aspects of the hotel industry including communication, customer
preferences, hotel optimization and enhancing user experience.
Hospitality services are interactive, as there is contact between a provider (host) and a
recipient (guest). The communication skills in hospitality encompass oral fluency and
providing good service. The host-guest relationship in the hotel industry is based on the
following two complementary truths: the interaction in service and the emotional labour of
guest experience (Lee et al.,2018). Instant messaging is an actual form of contact where AI
through smart bots or talk bots (Chatbots) enables computer programmes to conduct voice
control or text-based conversations (Cain et al.,2019;Nuruzzaman and Hussain, 2018).
This autonomy is the robots’ ability to achieve tasks by intelligence, mobility and sensory
abilities without real human interaction. In hotel rooms and visitors, chatbots can be made
available in the form of a smartphone app, on tablets and televisions. Customers can send
messages or chat with a bot to obtain the necessary details and services. Programming a
bot accurately can facilitate tasks such as meals and drinks order, customize dishes,
handle reservations or booking a taxi, by providing comprehensive information concerning
the provided services (Ananeva, 2019). Moreover, room facilities can also be managed by
advanced bots providing information and deliver services through intelligent programme
ordering. Chatbots and robots are now beginning to substitute human interactions,
replacing the host and taking off the responsibilities of human staff.
Despite AI affordances, this technology negatively influences job vacancies.
PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that in the early 2030s, 25% of employees in the USA
hospitality industry will be programmed, and around 73% of employee activities will have
the potential for robotics (Ananeva, 2019). The lack of human interaction, inadequate
service recovery and reduced interpersonal contact with service staff, influence customers’
satisfaction, especially with those who are less experienced with technology and guest-host
interactions. Therefore, AI adoption in the hotel industry is heavily dependent on
technological and labour cost, as well as customers’ culture and openness to AI services
(Cain et al.,2019;Ivanov and Webster, 2017).
Methodology
In line with its aim, this study uses an exploratory approach through in-depth interview
involving managers of selected hotels. Considering that the selected participants may have
direct experience with the use of AI tools, this method allows the researchers to obtain
participants’ real-world experience within a contextualized naturalistic setting. The collected
data is bound to provide rich insights into participants’ feelings and everyday practices
jFORESIGHT j
concerning AI tools. Positioned within the interpretivist paradigm, the meaning-making
process is based on the interaction between the researchers and the interviewees.
The semi-structured interviews were conducted with five assistant managers from 5-star
hotels in the UAE, namely, Atlantis the Palm,Shangri-La Hotel,Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Hotel,
Ritz-Carlton Abu Dhabi and Grand Canal. These hotels were chosen as managers from the
5-star hotels are most likely able to provide a comprehensive description of the experience
and feelings of using AI in the hotel industry. An initial invitation to participate in the interview
was sent to 12 managers between April and May 2020. However, only five of them agreed
to be interviewed. The interviews were carried out by an assigned researcher using pre-
defined semi-structured questions to ensure consistent interview protocol. Reflecting on the
research questions, the interview questions encompass the following three broad themes
which are: the motivation to use AI, how AI is used and the impact of using AI in the
respective hotels. The interviews were conducted in English, and each interview lasted
approximately 40–60min. The interview sessions were scheduled and recorded via the
Webex online platform with the consent of the interviewees. The interview data were
transcribed verbatim and cross-checked by fellow interviewees to ensure the validity of the
responses.
Subsequently, the collected data were managed and analysed manually. As for the data
analysis according to specified themes, a cyclical qualitative analytic approach (Eriksson
et al.,2020
) was adopted via two-level analysis. As proposed by Saldana (2015), the first
analytical level focused on the structural coding of the data where data was categorised
according to specific initial categories. The second level of analysis focus on comparing
various specific categories to construct and establish patterns in the outcome, where an
inductive approach was adopted for data analysis. By establishing the hotel as a unit (case)
of analysis, each interview transcripts were coded accordingly and later contrasted where
the outcome of the analysis reflects the findings within an individual case and between
different cases. The findings of the research are expounded as follows:
Findings
This research aims to explore the effects of AI on the competitive advantage of hotels in the
hospitality industry. For this purpose, three themes, namely, the motives, the use and the
impact of using AI in UAE hotels were investigated. The first theme focuses on the drives of
AI usage in the hotel industry, whilst the second theme reflects how AI is being adopted in
the hotel. Finally, the third theme indicates the effects of using AI in spurring the growth of
the hotel industry. The themes are further elaborated in the following section.
Motivations to use artificial intelligence in UAE hotels
Current studies provide considerable attention to the effect of AI and its contribution to
technical and managerial functions. However, the effectiveness of AI application and
performance is dependent not only on how to use it but also on its competencies. In this case,
the motivation to use AI can be further classified into the following four themes: flexible
infrastructure, AI strategic alignment, AI management and AI resources.
Flexible infrastructure. Resource-based advocates emphasised that the success of firms in
achieving their competitive advantage is dependent on their rare and valuable resources.
AI infrastructure flexibility is important to facilitate and smoothen the workflow. According to
Interviewee D:
AI can handle multiple tasks that are traditionally performed by human and manage a variety of
information about the hotel. This is important for our hotel because it provides timely data and
concurrently achieves the given tasks in the hotel well.
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The AI’s flexibility in connectivity is another important factor that plays an important role in
motivating the use of AI as responding to customers on time can influence customers’
satisfaction and loyalty. It also influences hotels profitability because time is money.
According to Interviewee A:
AI’s connectivity and ability to communicate with other components, both internal and external,
is very important to both our hotel and our customers because it enables us to effectively
manage customers’ relationship.
Artificial intelligence strategic alignment. AI strategic alignment reflects the relationship
between AI and corporate strategy. From this perspective, hotels can adopt AI to facilitate
corporate strategy and achieve better performance with strategic AI alignment. According
to the literature on strategic AI alignment literature, the shared understanding between AI
and business executives enables the assignment of more efficient resources and respond
to the environment and various opportunities such as innovations. Interviewee C confirms
that:
The AI ability to easily reconfigure tasks and to fit them specifically enables our hotel to gain trust
from both our partners and customers.
Interviewee A also added that:
AI strategy and alignment of given tasks are important to effectively and efficiently utilize both
time and resources to achieve tasks and allow innovations with minimum risk.
Artificial intelligence resources. The organization’s ability to process knowledge, i.e. the
ability to create, acquire, transmit and integrate information. It is also the behavioural
change that reflects the new cognitive situation and is important in terms of organisational
performance. AI offers a method to encourage organisational learning, which consequently
improves organisational performance. However, AI applications are new and require hotels
to build learning capacity through adaptation and experimentation.
Interviewee B:
We are still faced with several challenges in operating AI and adjusting AI programmes to carry
out specific tasks. Thus, we adopt other hotels’ models in AI adoption and integration. This
enabled us to minimize errors and improve problem-solving, which helped in improving our
productivity.
Interviewee D also confirms that:
It was a challenging task when we wanted to programme the AI robot to allow service
customizations in the serving room. Thus, we engaged a technology developer to install the AI
programme and train our staff based on the experimental approach. This helped to increase our
competencies in problem-solving skill and improve quality. (Table 1)
Table 1 Motivations to use AI in UAE hotels
Motivation Interviewee Themes Outcome
AI infrastructure
flexibility
Interviewee D AI task performing
capacity
Ability to handle multiple tasks
Ability to manage a variety of information
Timely response when it comes to order and task
Interviewee A AI connectivity Facilitate both internal and external communication with other
components
AI alignment Interviewee C AL reconfigures easily Ability to easily reconfigure and fit according to specific tasks
Interviewee A Ability to use information Hotels able to use information and time efficiently and effectively
AI resources Interviewee D AI adoption Adapt other hotels’ models in AI
Interviewee B AI experimental Install AI programming and train staff based on the experimental
approach
jFORESIGHT j
The use of artificial intelligence in UAE hotels
Technological advancement is likely to have a significant impact on how work is undertaken
(Brougham and Haar, 2017). In lieu of the second issue, the following three themes have
emerged from the analysis of the interview data: trip planning, reception service and room
service. These services involve customer interactions and providing quality services for
customer’s satisfaction.
Trip planning. Trip planning influences guest satisfaction and loyalty, especially if the planning
is flexible and includes a variety of services and products. However, effective planning
depends on accurate and flexible communication giving rise to two challenges. Firstly, the
hiring of more staff and long working hours. Secondly, assuring the quality of communication,
which may be difficult to control. Therefore, the integration of AI in trip planning is a need mainly
for hotels with large capacities, such as 5-star hotels in the UAE. The use of AI and its impact
on hotel quality was confirmed by Interviewee A, who mentioned that:
One of our hotel missions is to provide smooth trip planning with zero error. Thus, we adopted AI
in planning and managing the trips. Our hotel provides a complete trip service through AI, which
includes booking ticket, room, food, internal transport, and others.
The use of AI technology in the hotel industry goes beyond achieving quality to meet
customer preferences and this affects customers’ loyalty as proposed by Interviewee B:
We always had difficulty managing guests’ trip, especially when high customizations are
involved such as special services and products. Thus, we resort to AI to solve this problem,
which helps to meet our guests’ preferences.
Both interviewees highlighted how AI provided improved quality for trip planning, such as
providing complete service, avoiding errors in planning, managing and customizing the trip.
This usage enables hotels to minimise deficiencies and strategize to boost their service
quality.
Reception service. Hotels should integrate intelligent technology to meet changing
consumer expectations (Leung, 2019). Thus, hospitality services knowledge that can be
programmed and performed by AI should be explored. In this study, the use of AI is found
to facilitate reception service. This facilitation shifts the traditional market based on direct
interaction between guests and hotel employees to programmed hotel services and
immediate responses to the guest. For example, Interviewee C points out that:
Reception and information desks are important and consume our employees’ time to inform and
direct guests, especially when they speak different languages. Thus, we used a robot via AI to
assist our guests directly.
Leading hotels in the arena competition strive to achieve the highest level of quality by
providing integrated services that include travel, accommodation, entry facilities and internal
transfers. This integration requires significant effort from staff members in documentation,
follow-up and responding to customers’ preferences warmly. Interviewee A provides explains
how the use of AI addresses this problem for reception service:
Our hotels strive to offer better service to customers. It was very difficult to sustain a customer-
centred approach. To do so, hotels are required to recruit, train, and pay for a variety of services.
This costs us a lot and the quality still depends on the staffs’ performance. Therefore, we adopt
Chatbots to manage customers’ information immediately through Facebook Messenger or
WhatsApp.
AI was used to automate the reception service due to its advantage in reducing the cost of
hiring and training staff by offering a standardized work performance and immediate
response rate.
jFORESIGHT j
Room services. Room services play a major role in hotels’ performance and their competitive
advantage as a good room service influence guests to extend their stay in the hotel.
Additionally, it can also influence customers loyalty and increase positive word-of-mouth via
social media or face-to-face interaction. However, achieving high-quality room services is
difficult as customers have strong preferences and demands. Thus, adopting AI has become
a necessity rather than an opportunity for 5-star hotels. According to D:
We adopted AI to facilitate room service management and control. We used a simple voice
command to give our guests complete control of room lighting and temperature as well as the
television instead of being confused with how to find a favourite channel. The voice command
can even open or close the drapes in some rooms.
The quality of meals served is also an important driver in achieving competitive advantages in
hotel services. The challenge lies in offering a menu that can cater to guest’s preferences as
taste preference differs across individuals. Thus, catering to guests’ needs consumes time
and effort, especially when the order is unavailable in the kitchen, increasing the cost of
service. Therefore, technology interaction in room service is important to facilitate meals
ordering and customisation, especially for hotels located far from the heart of the city where
restaurants are readily available.
According to E:
We use AI room service to facilitate customizing and ordering food either from our kitchen or
other restaurants such as Subway, McDonald, and other partner restaurants. (Table 2)
The impact of using artificial intelligence in UAE hotels
The interviewees also revealed how the use of AI successfully influence the way the human
resource is used and how it leads to a transformation in hotel operations. These findings
provide an indication that AI will replace or provide the opportunity to relocate resources.
The following three themes were identified as the impact of AI use in hotels: improved
information quality reduced service cost and improved market share.
Service effectiveness. Guests are often keen to understand the services offered by the hotel
in organizing the trip, from room services to insurance and internal transportation. To offer
such services, the regulation of information exchange must be effective. The use of AI greatly
improves service quality through faster processes that cater to customers’ preferences.
Interview D mentioned that:
The use of AI enables us to share our hotel information and services with potential guests, giving
them autonomy over their trip.
Table 2 Use of AI in UAE hotels
AI Usage Interviewee s Themes Outcome
Trip planning Interviewee A Planning the trip Booking ticket, room, food, internal transport and others
Interviewee B Customizing the trip Special services and products
Reception service Interviewee C Managing reception Facilitate reception processes, shorten the time and cater to
customers’ language
Interviewee A Managing
information desk
Managing customers information immediately
Room services Interviewee D Room control Controlof room lighting and temperature, as well as the
television
Room security Open or close the drapes in some rooms
Interviewee E Food order Facilitate customizing and ordering food either from their
kitchen or other restaurants
jFORESIGHT j
Hotels are not the only niche for AI hospitality because travel agencies now offer guests to
customize an AI travel plan to them, but many would be happy to make an offer because
their preferences are met without planning. Therefore, hotels have to extend their services
through providing customers a chance to design their services and products. According to
Interviewee C:
AI improve our service quality by assisting our guests to customize their trips and suggesting
good trips as well. This helps to solve two problems: time spent in customizing the trips and
provide information about other options.
Providing hospitality services is a complex task as human behaviour is dynamic. Providing
AI technology improve response time and offers guests to cater to their preferences.
Service efficiency. Hotels require accurately designed strategies for both internal and
customers to ensure costs operation efficiency and maximisation of profit. The integration of
AI is advantageous to both hoteliers and guests. Hotel marketing and sales systems require
chatbot computer software to learn all they can about the customer –their tastes, behaviours
and responses.
According to Interviewee B:
The use of AI dramatically reduces working hours, especially during the holiday season. AI helps
in answering questions and solving problems, enabling us to provide good quality at lower
costs.
AI also assist hotels in fully using their capacity and reduce time in communication and
documentation. Interviewee C stated that:
Through AI, we reduced service cost by fully utilising our hotel capacity. The AI enables our hotel
to provide personalized concierge services with real-time requests and recommendations.
Improved market share. The quality and accuracy of customers’ information are important
factors in commercial services such as the hotel industry because the accuracy of data
helps consolidate the market policy for the hotel. The database also assists in developing
direct, medium and long-term implementation strategies according to market requirements
and changes. This development maximizes the market share of the hotels and is impossible
to meet without AI interaction.
Interviewee D mentioned that:
The use of AI provides us with an amazing database about our customers, which enable us to be
more innovative in marketing strategy. It strengthens our relationship through easy communication
and timely response to customers’ needs regardless of customer quantity and time.
AI also provide necessary data necessary to increase the efficiency of the hotel by
summarising the customers’ demographic and geographic data, as well as their service
preferences, constructing a successful service model.
Interviewee E stated that,
The use of AI enables our hotel to be more innovative in customizing the services according to
customers’ preferences and culture. We have so many customers from different countries and
with different religions. With AI, we can easily customize the services and manage our hotel
capacity to meet customers’ satisfaction. (Table 3)
Discussion
This paper aims to explore the drivers of AI adoption, AI usage in hotels and its impact. To
achieve this aim, three questions were developed. The first question was developed to
uncover the drivers of AI use among hotel operators in the UAE. This study has reported
jFORESIGHT j
three main factors that motivate hotels to use AI, which include the flexibility of
infrastructure, alignment and resources for AI. The AI infrastructure flexibility improves
hotels tasks and services by enabling staffs to handle multiple tasks. Using Chatbots, AI
allows hotels to improve service quality in both their functional and technical processes,
automating tasks that are traditionally performed by service employees, manage a variety of
information and responding promptly (Prentice et al.,2020). Furthermore, AI alignment is an
effective motivation for using AI as it is easily reconfigured to fit specific tasks and meet
guests’ needs effectively. This is supported by Gabriel (2020), who claims that AI design
should create the greatest happiness for the largest number of people or sentient creatures.
Finally, hotels also use AI by adopting the models and technologies from other hotels or
through developing AI programmes and training staffs based on an experimental
approach. Additionally, UAE hotels were shown to efficiently use AI in room services,
notably in room control, food and security purpose.
The second research question on the use of AI in UAE hotels is addressed via three main
findings including trip planning, reception service and room services. The use of AI
potentially leads to significant savings, elimination of human error and higher service
quality. UAE hotels tend to use AI technologies to facilitate trip planning and management,
assisting guests to customize their experiences and services for the trip. There are many
issues that guests are concern about, such as health-care services, especially in the time of
Covid-19 (Jiang and Wen, 2020). The hotels use AI in managing reception through
facilitating the reception process in a timely manner besides catering to customers’
preferred language. AI minimizes human interaction error, improving service efficiency.
The third question concerns the influence of AI technologies on several aspects of hotel
performance in the UAE. The impact of AI can be seen in three main areas, namely, service
effectiveness, service efficiency and improved market share. AI technology facilitates the
effectiveness of trip management and implementation by providing information on tourist
site, including popular places, food and cultures. This information can assist guests to
easily customize their trips and allows them flexibility (Tussyadiah and Park, 2018). AI
technologies also facilitate the efficiency of services. Hotel robotics is often used with other
enabling technologies such as facial recognition, automated payment, drone delivery and
self-driving cars. These services reduce the time and cost associated with achieving hotel
tasks (S
anchez-Medina and C-S
anchez, 2020). As knowledge is a key driver in developing
an accurate strategic plan and delivering innovation, AI capabilities in knowledge transfer
and management provide a solution for innovative marketing strategies. Findings show that
information provided by AI on the market and customers enable customers to share
innovation development.
Overall, AI is an effective tool to achieve a competitive advantage. In the hotel industry, this
study addresses the following three interrelated axioms of AI in the industry: the motivation
Table 3 Impact of using AI in UAE hotels
Themes Interviewees Sub-themes Outcome
Service
effectiveness
Interviewee D Knowledge sharing AI enable customers to share information with hotels and
design their services
Interviewee C Quality of
information
Improve the quality of information that enables guests to
customize their trips besides suggesting good trips
Service efficiency Interviewee B Time effectiveness Reduce working hours, which the provision of good quality at
a lower cost
Interviewee C Efficient use of
resources
Enable efficiency by fully using hotel capacity
Improved market
share
Interviewee D Innovative ideas Improve innovative marketing strategies
Interviewee E Market innovation Improve market share based on customers’ demographic
and geographic traits
jFORESIGHT j
for using AI, areas of use and the effect of AI use, as shown in Figure 1. The motivation
factors of using AI determine the way that hotels use AI technologies whilst both motivation
factors and the use of AI influence hotel performance.
Theoretical contribution
This study is one of few studies and the first in the Arab Region that discusses how AI
technologies influences several aspects of hotel performance. Given the paucity of
empirical studies on the effective factors of AI technology in the hotel industry, this study
provides valuable results and shows the effective factors of AI that influence hotels industry
performance. In addition, this study provide a clear understanding on how to use AI
technologies in hotel services. Finally, this study develops a model that determines how the
interaction between AI factors and uses influence hotels performance. Hotel management is
one of the most important pillars of competitive advantage, which, in turn, affects not only
the profitability of the hotel but also its competitive sustainability in global and local markets.
This study provides a road map for hotel managers on how to exploit AI technologies in the
improvement of hotels’ performance according to empirical results extracted from leading
hotels in the UAE rather than inductive expectations.
Limitations and recommendations for future research
This exploratory research addresses the issues related to the use of AI in the service
industry and is not without limitations. Firstly, findings show that a majority of UAE hotels use
AI in managing trip planning, reception service and room services. However, there are many
areas where AI can add value to the hotel industry such as security and entertainment, which
were not investigated in this study. The use of AI for marketing and promotional purposes is
also less emphasized in this context, although studies are indicating the potential usage of AI
for marketing (Eriksson et al., 2020). Thus, future research can further explore further areas
where AI can provide added value to hotels and their customers. Secondly, AI is a complex
innovation and many factors can influence AI performance. Thus, future research can
address this limitation by investigating technical and managerial factors. This requires
interviewing AI experts instead of hotel managers. It is also difficult to ensure how AI influence
the wide scale of hotel performance through interviews. Therefore, future research can extend
to the improvement of the methodology and use longitudinal research. The findings of this
study demonstrate that the adoption of AI has the potential to contribute to competitive
advantage. The challenges in using AI for competitive advantage such as digital readiness
and business culture seem worthy for future inquiry.
Figure 1
Q1: What are the key drivers of AI? Q2: How do hotels use AI? Q3: What are the impacts of AI in hotels?
Key drivers for
success AI
•AI infrastructure
flexibility
•AI strategic
alignment
•AI Resources
(management and
AI skills)
Hotel Performance
•Quality
•Market share
•Cost efficiency
•Customers’
satisfaction
Room Service
Reception Service
Trip Planning
Source: Authors
jFORESIGHT j
References
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Corresponding author
Samer Ali Hussein Al-shami can be contacted at: samerali@utem.edu.my
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