Exploring Technology Acceptance and Resistance among Hospitality Student-Practitioners

This study examines the factors influencing technology adoption amongst hospitality industry student-practitioners in Batam City, Indonesia, using the perspectives of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Innovation Resistance Theory (IRT). A descriptive qualitative approach was employed to explore the participants’ real-life experiences through semi-structured in-depth interviews with three hospitality student-practitioners. The research findings indicate that factors related to resistance to technology are more dominant than those related to acceptance. Technical barriers, including system disruptions, technological complexity, the need for training, and perceptions of risk, emerged as the main obstacles to technology adoption. Nevertheless, the participants acknowledged that technology can improve work efficiency, speed up task completion, boost productivity, and facilitate adaptation to various hospitality systems. The contribution of this research lies in three aspects: participants learnt the systems directly whilst working (rather than at university); they regarded skills in using the systems as an asset that could be transferred to other hotels; and the resistance they demonstrated was functional in nature, rather than psychological.