Strangers or friends? Examining chatbot adoption in tourism through psychological ownership

Abstract

Most tourism literature focuses on the potential advantages of AI adoption. This study focuses specifically on chatbots for managing customer relationships in tourism. It advances psychological ownership as a useful theoretical lens to address the potential negative consequences of employing chatbots in tourism. A study on survey data from 200 customers shows that replacing the human component of the relationship with a chatbot decreases tourists’ psychological ownership feelings, negatively affecting selfefficacy, accountability, and self-identity. Ultimately, using chatbots diminishes relationship commitment and leads to lower rebooking intention.