Abstract
Robots have started to be used in the service sector as well as in the manufacturing industry. The use of service robots in airport services, tourism, and hospital services also brings many advantages. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, reducing physical contact and providing hygiene are essential benefits of service robots. For this purpose, the effect of COVID-19 fear on perceived trust in service robots and the intention to use them at airports was investigated in this study. For analysis, data were collected from 730 participants from 64 different countries, by questionnaire. The data were analyzed with the SPSS and AMOS package programs. As a result of the structural equation model analysis, it was determined that COVID-19 fear affects perceived trust in service robots and the intention to use them positively, and perceived trust also affects the intention to use service robots positively. In addition, as a result of the Process Macro analysis, it was found that perceived trust has a high mediating effect on the effect of COVID-19 fear on the intention to use. The research results show that people’s attitudes towards COVID-19 shape the perception of robot usage in air transport services.
Highlights
The spread of the COVID-19 virus is a threat to almost all countries globally, especially since late 2019
This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and perceived trust on the intention to use service robots at airports
As a result of the structural equation model analysis, it was determined that COVID-19 fear significantly affected the perceived trust and intention to use
Summary
The spread of the COVID-19 virus is a threat to almost all countries globally, especially since late 2019. Several countries have found that new technologies, such as mobile applications, robots, and drones, can minimize human contact. Communicated diseases, such as influenza, herpes, or Ebola, are being held at bay by systems such as teleoperation, autonomous service robots, face recognition, and thermal scanning [2]. Air transport was greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus first spread through air travel, with nearly every country restricting travel. The demand for air traffic, mostly tied to tourism and leisure travel, decreased significantly during the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic [4]. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, air transport mobility has strongly affected the EU region and other parts of the world. Because of restrictions in destination countries requiring quarantine, passengers are prohibited
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