Will Self-Service Technologies Be Widely Adopted in Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality Industries During and after COVID-19?

Abstract

Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality (TTH) sectors had been believed to continue experiencing constant growth before the unexpected COVID-19 outbreak. Although the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak had occurred before, COVID-19 is causing a vast number of fatalities and raised social and economic issues in many countries. TTH sectors were under heavy pressure compared to other industries during COVID-19. This article aims to systematically review the critical role of SSTs to be adopted in the TTH companies during and after COVID-19. How business transformation is possible in the TTH companies will also be discussed. For that purpose, this study carried out a meta-analysis from previous studies. The results revealed TTH companies must re-shape business strategy by adopting and adjusting service delivery using Self-Service Technologies (SSTs) to stay competitive and survive tough times. TTH ecosystem needs to employ Augmented reality, Virtual reality, Blockchain, Robot, and Autonomous Service which have become a reality today and become a necessity for many industries in the future. The originality or novelty of this research is that this research contributes to the body of knowledge by elaborating on how TTH sectors will adopt SSTs.