Are we behaviorally immune to COVID-19 through robots?

In the context of the health risks of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourists' choices have shifted to reflect a subconscious psychological mechanism – the behavioral immune system – that facilitates human organisms to better identify plausible threats to ones' health through environment cues. This research draws upon this theoretical lens to assess tourists' pre-trip hotel evaluation in two 2 × 2 between-subject experiments. Experiment 1 (robot vs. human) tested the service provider's effect on hotel selection evaluation through the mediation of sense of control and the moderation of pandemic risk. Experiment 2 examined this chain of relationship through the moderation of hotel type. This research contributes to the literature by underscoring the pathogen-avoidance mechanism in tourist evaluation and the peril of robotization.