# Chatots in Airport Customer Service--Exploring Use Cases and Technology Acceptance
## 8 Conclusions, Limitations, and Future Outlook  
The above-presented study has investigated potential use cases and predictors for the acceptance of chatbots in airport customer service. Inspired by previous literature on technology acceptance, we used an extended TAM in order to collect relevant data. A total of \(n=191\) travelers participated in our study, which showed that people's _Perceived Usefulness_ of a chatbot may be considered the most important predictor of its acceptance and that this perception of usefulness mainly focuses on the speedy provision of flight-relevant information. These results, however, face some limitations. Firstly, they revolve around chatbots for customer service contexts and may thus not be generalized to other airport departments or operations. Secondly, our study was conducted at a rather small local airport. A comparable investigation at an international, potentially more digitized airport may yield different results, particularly since we found differences between local and international travelers in our sample. A larger and particularly more diverse sample would thus be required to validate our findings. Thirdly, our research did not make participants interact with a chatbot before filling out the questionnaire, relying on their hypothetical or previously gained experiences from interacting with such tools. And, finally, we used a rather basic conceptual model to study travelers' _Behavioral Intention_ to use an airport customer service chatbot. A more holistic approach focusing on, e.g., UTAUT may have generated a more comprehensive understanding of the given problem space.  
Despite these limitations, we believe that our findings provide relevant insights concerning the implementation of chatbot technology at airports and may be considered a starting point for additional investigations. To this end, future work should particularly explore the actual suitability of certain use cases (e.g., visa and immigration needs) and their respective challenges. Also, a better understanding of contextual factors, such as place and time, is required to better adapt chatbot services to the needs of individual travelers. Finally, it may be worth investigating airport chatbot acceptance from a cultural point of view, as there seems to be a great difference in people's openness toward this type of conversational technology, and a better understanding of these differences might help prioritize respective implementation efforts.  
The article was a collaborative effort by all three co-authors. Conceptualization, I.A. and S.S.; methodology, I.A.; validation, I.A. and S.S.; formal analysis, I.A.; investigation, I.A.; data curation, I.A., S.S. and G.G.; writing--original draft preparation, I.A. and S.S.; writing--review and editing, S.S. and G.G.; visualization, S.S.; supervision, S.S.; project administration, S.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
The research was not directly funded but conducted as part of an internship placement at Amadeus IT Group S.A.  
The data presented in this study are openly available via Zenodo at [[https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11074341](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11074341)]([https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11074341](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11074341)) (accessed: 26 th April 2024).  
We want to thank the travelers at Innsbruck Airport who took the time to complete our questionnaire while standing in line for their security check. Also, we would like to thank the Public Relations Officer of Innsbruck Airport for providing her insights concerning typical customer care requests and their handling. Finally, we want to thank the Amadeus IT Group S.A. for supporting this research as part of an internship placement.