In recent years, robot services are prevalent in the hotel industry. Hotels face the practical challenge of deciding whether or not providing robot services. To cater to this challenge, we consider two competing hotels, and develop four theoretical models to explore their optimal robot adoption decisions. First, we utilize the Hotelling game to portray the utility functions of different types of consumers for two different quality hotels, and based on this, we derive the consumer demand function as well as the profit function of the hotels. Subsequently, we present the optimal decisions under different strategies. Finally, by comparatively analyzing the optimal profits, we obtain the optimal robot introduction strategy for hotels. The results show that the optimal robot introduction strategy depends on three factors: the utility that robots bring to both technology-embracing and technology-averse consumers, the labor cost saved by providing robots, and the robot purchase cost. Interestingly, compared to the two competing hotels that have not introduced robots, when both of them introduce robots, they fall into a “prisoner’s dilemma”. Besides, when both competing parties introduce robots, the profits of both parties tend to decline compared to those in the case that only one party introduces robots. At last, we consider two extended models, and we find that the main conclusions of the extended models are consistent with the basic model, which validates the robustness of the main results.

中文翻译：

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是否引入机器人？竞争酒店的决策


近年来，机器人服务在酒店业很普遍。酒店面临着决定是否提供机器人服务的实际挑战。为了应对这一挑战，我们考虑了两家竞争酒店，并开发了四个理论模型来探索他们采用机器人的最佳决策。首先，我们利用 Hotelling 游戏来描绘两家不同品质酒店不同类型消费者的效用函数，并在此基础上推导出酒店的消费者需求函数和利润函数。随后，我们提出了不同策略下的最佳决策。最后，通过比较分析最优利润，我们得到了酒店最优的机器人引入策略。结果表明，最佳的机器人引入策略取决于三个因素：机器人为接受技术和厌恶技术的消费者带来的效用、提供机器人节省的劳动力成本以及机器人购买成本。有趣的是，相较于两家没有引入机器人的竞争酒店，当它们都引入机器人时，就陷入了“囚徒困境”。此外，当双方都引入机器人时，与只有一方引入机器人的情况相比，双方的利润往往会下降。最后，我们考虑了两个扩展模型，发现扩展模型的主要结论与基本模型一致，验证了主要结果的稳健性。