Is “machina” a “deus ex machina” solution to the labour shortages in tourism and hospitality?

Purpose To evaluate the role of robots, artificial intelligence and service automation in mitigating the labour shortages in tourism and hospitality. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper. Findings Robots, artificial intelligence and service automation have substitution, enhancement and transformational effects on tasks and jobs. The automatability of jobs depends on the automatability of the tasks they include. Cognitive, repetitive, standardised tasks are easier to automate. Tourism jobs with more physical tasks are more difficult to automate. Originality/value The paper sheds light on the mechanisms through which tourism and hospitality jobs can be automated to mitigate labour shortages.