# Chatots in Airport Customer Service--Exploring Use Cases and Technology Acceptance
## 1 Introduction  
Recent developments in conversational artificial intelligence, particularly those showcased by OpenAI's ChatGPT [1] and other large language model-driven applications, have jumpstarted discussions about chatbots and their potential application areas in business [2]. But even before 2022, these chatbots or conversational agents (i.e., computer programs with natural language capabilities that offer real-time conversations with human users; cf. [3]) had already been adopted by various industries, including healthcare, education, e-commerce, and entertainment [4, 5]. While voice-controlled digital assistants, such as Apple's Siri [6], Amazon's Alexa [7], or Google's Assistant [8], have seamlessly integrated into our daily routines at home, text-based chatbots have been increasingly populating instant messaging platforms or become embedded into company websites [3, 9]. In customer service, chatbots have been commonly used because they reduce staff costs and, at the same time, increase efficiency by giving assistance and providing answers to many customers at the same time [10]. Primarily tasked with addressing frequently asked questions, they reduce human intervention to more complicated customer inquiries [11], thereby optimizing interactions between an organization and its customers and consequently fostering perceived service quality [12]. Also, in airport settings, we have witnessed the implementation of chatbots as artificial first-level customer support agents (e.g., in Singapore, Seoul, Athens, Frankfurt, and Milan), leading to significant cost savings and shorter waiting times for passengers who seek information assistance [13, 14].  
Despite these technological advancements and enthusiastic predictions, interactions with chatbots still raise several issues. In particular, skepticism toward the technology has been noted among potential users [15]. Respective challenges include unmet user expectations, which might lead to frustration [16]. Also, doubts regarding chatbot authenticity andlack of trust and privacy are issues raised in this context [12; 16; 17]. And while there have been studies focusing on different use cases for chatbots at airports, travelers' acceptance of such solutions has barely been investigated [13; 18]. Consequently, our goal was to close this knowledge gap and find an answer to the following research question:  
_\"What are potential use cases for chatbot applications in airport customer service and what is their respective technology acceptance by travelers?\"_  
Our report on this undertaking starts with a discussion of relevant background work in Section 2. Next, we report on an initial exploration of potential use cases for chatbot applications in airport customer service in Section 3. In Section 4, we then describe the development of our conceptual model. Next, Section 5 elaborates on the employed method, the used material, and the hypotheses that were created for the investigation of travelers' acceptance. Subsequently, Section 6 reports on our results, and Section 7 discusses their implications. Finally, Section 8 concludes our report, outlines limitations, and suggests directions for further research.