Our experts, Stanislav Ivanov and Craig Webster, together with Elitza Stoilova (umni.co) and Daniel Slobodskoy (Sezam24) co-authored a paper on the opportunities that automation technologies provide to travel, tourism and hospitality companies to mitigate the negative impacts of biosecurity threats on their economic performance. It discusses the costs and benefits of the incorporation of increased levels of automation, especially in regard to the benefits of the safety and health of the consumer. It elaborates on how the current pandemic would stimulate the adoption of automation technologies. Finally, the article discusses how this fits into the business models of tourism-related industries and outlines the micro- and macroeconomic implications of the greater incorporation of automation into the industry.

The paper was published in Tourism Economics (SAGE). It can be accessed via the publisher's website here. A preprint is available here.