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A new study has found that U.K. hotels and restaurants using humanlike service robots can make solo guests feel more comfortable in engaging with these robots by providing comfortable ambient conditions—including lighting, scents and sounds—and adding local cues like British flag designs on the robot's body.

Service robots in the U.K. hospitality sector are often anthropomorphized and are designed to perform tasks typically handled by human staff. They include food delivery robots in restaurants, as well as concierge robots designed for greeting guests in hotels.

They have become increasingly common across U.K. hospitality businesses in the post-pandemic era, with companies such as Bella Italia and Las Iguanas trialing service robots since the pandemic.

The research was led by Dr. The Khoa Do (Bin), from the School of Business and Management at Royal Holloway, University of London. It was carried out in collaboration with Professor Kimmy Wa Chan from Hong Kong Baptist University, and has been published in the Journal of Service Research.

The research consisted of one field study and three lab experiments which examined solo customers who interacted with humanlike service robots in a real restaurant, as well as those who engaged with service robots in hotel and airport check-in scenarios.

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