The Benefit–Risk Paradox of AI and IoT in Smart Hotels: Evidence from Guest Co-Presence Interdependence

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming smart hotel services by simultaneously creating technological benefits and privacy-related concerns. Although previous studies have extensively examined the effects of AI and IoT on tourist experiences, they have predominantly adopted an individual perspective, with limited attention to potential interdependence among co-present guests. This study examines how technological benefits (AI usefulness, IoT convenience, and personalization) and technological risk (perceived privacy risk) are associated with tourists’ satisfaction and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) intention, while also investigating whether these outcomes exhibit dependence across social, spatial, and temporal structures of guest co-presence. The study draws on survey data collected from tourists staying in AI-and IoT-enabled hotels in Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia. The findings show that AI usefulness, IoT convenience, and personalization are positively associated with satisfaction and eWOM intention, whereas perceived privacy risk is negatively associated with both outcomes. Furthermore, technological benefit constructs exhibit significant positive indirect associations across guest co-presence structures, whereas privacy risk exhibits less consistently statistically significant indirect associations, particularly for eWOM intention. These findings indicate the coexistence of positive technology evaluations and privacy concerns and reveal different patterns of co-presence-associated interdependence rather than demonstrating that technological benefits statistically dominate privacy risks. These findings contribute to smart hospitality research by extending the benefit–risk perspective beyond exclusively individual-level evaluations and highlighting the importance of considering conditional interdependence among co-present guests when evaluating AI- and IoT-enabled hotel services.