How Are the Tourism Businesses Using ICT to Improve the Tourist Experience - Essay Example

?How the Tourism Businesses Using ICT to Improve the Tourist Experience? Introduction Tourism is integral to the global economy. The value of the industry is apparent as well in the employment sector; it provides millions of jobs all over the world. And, it is currently undergoing a technological revolution. The speed of change in the tourism industry during the past decade has been reinforced by the growth and application of information and communications technology (ICT) viewed by some scholars as “the collective term given to the most recent developments in the mode (electronic) and the mechanisms (computers and communications technologies) used for the acquisition, processing, analysis, storage, retrieval, dissemination and application of information” (Page & Connell, 2006, p. 109). This implies that the application of an array of communications- and computer-assisted, and electronic technologies are being used to a greater extent to improve the performance and implementation of business operations in the tourism industry, and to enhance tourist experience. One of the primary functions of ICTs is the processing and speeding up of information flow to and from the customers. In addition to the World Wide Web, other technology devices, such as smartphone and GPS, have boosted the tourist experience (Mamaghani, 2009; Cantoni, Kalbaska, & Inversini, 2009). Homogenisation of communication technologies allows global reception of mobile phones. Tourists use GPS to quickly and conveniently acquire directions and information about present locations. The combination of standard technologies and systems also has given suppliers the opportunity to lessen costs, and enhance the tourist experience. For instance, airline businesses launched mobile check-in by combining the check-in procedure with the newest mobile phone technologies (Frew, 2000; Kourtit et al., 2011). Customers gain from further ease or convenience and the tourism sector gains from cost efficiency by supplanting employees with kiosks. Other technologies that the tourism sector can use nowadays in order to enhance the tourist experience are the QR Code, augmented reality, MP3 guide, and geolocation marketing. Quick Response (QR) Codes are a kind of barcode that can be seen through QR reading gadgets such as smartphones. QR Code can be used by tourists to access addresses, maps, and locations through their mobile phones (Hall & Williams, 2008). Augmented reality is a latest technology that erases the line separating what is unreal and what is real by improving people’s senses. This technology is guiding tourists and gives them a surreal experience of magnificent tourist destinations (Conrady, 2010, p. 248). MP3 guide provides tourists access to maps, from historic destinations to the most popular attractions. This technology eliminates the need for tour guides, and makes the tourist experience convenient and trouble-free (Conrady, 2010). Geolocation is a process of detecting a physical location using a wireless device. It can detect a person’s longitude and latitude coordinates to identify his/her precise position. The tourism sector may use geolocation marketing to enhance its services by making local information available to its customers. Tourism businesses may concentrate its marketing efforts and advertise to local populations (Yunker, 2010, p. 76). Geolocation marketing is giving the tourism sector the opportunity to show services that are offered in specific locations. ICTs in Tourism Much of the progress in the tourism industry is rooted in technology processes and facilities that businesses buy for their standard activities. Recently, ICT systems have produced numerous process innovations. Processing of accounts, checking in of guests, and bookings has become considerably downsized, and additional facilities for maintenance made operations more versatile and flexible (Zhou, 2004; Ruiz-Molina, Gil-Saura, & Moliner-Velasquez, 2010). Cooper and colleagues (1998 as cited in Page & Connell, 2006, p. 44) have observed that these ICTs are usually comprised of wireless communication systems, the internet, management information systems (MISs), satellites, telephones, videotext, and computers. ICTs have enhanced the speed and accuracy of computing, trimmed down costs of acquiring hardware and software, and enhanced processing capacity (Page & Connell, 2006, p. 44; Buhalis, 1998). Today, ICT-driven business approaches have emerged and supply and demand have expanded globally, especially in the tourism industry. This has implied that tourism businesses can restructure their management processes and operations employing ICTs. But primarily, as correctly observed by some scholars, ICTs encourage and allow both tourism businesses and customers to communicate, improve understanding of services and demands, enhance dissemination of information, and build connections to link different culture and mitigate the barriers of communication distances (Pease, Rowe, & Cooper, 2007; Blanke, 2011). Primarily, technology is radically transforming the tourism industry and creating new ways of communicating with customers. Throughout the pre-ICT period, the task of the travel agent was to recommend travel destinations to customers and to function as an intermediary in the complex procedure of scheduling and organising travel bookings (Mamaghani, 2009; Kowalkowski, 2008). There were two movements of ICT that have had a substantial influence on the tourism sector. The first movement is the direct reservation systems, like the Semi-Automated Business Research Environment (SABRE) system of the American Airlines. The second is online sales outlet (Mamaghani, 2009, p. 365; Berger, Lehmann, & Lehner, 2002). The SABRE system came into being in the 1960s. It was the earliest automated airline reservation systems. The SABRE Technology Group expanded its reach by creating Travelocity.com in 1996, a top business-to-consumer (B2C) tourism site on the Internet (Mamaghani, 2009, pp. 365-366). Current advances comprise wireless communication through hand-held gadgets and mobile consumer tools. These technologies facilitated seat arrangements and boarding tickets, which assist travellers who have missed connecting flights (Song, Liu, & Chen, 2013; Bentley, 1996). Before the advent of ICTs, travel agents were integral to these procedures. By the 1990s, airline businesses embarked on aggressive price competitions and profit margins were trimmed down. Airlines attempted to limit or reduce commission in order to stay cost-effective. The reservation system was becoming less important. Travel agents who worked with business clients employed information systems to create point-of-sales and fare-search devices (Song et al., 2013; Lee, 2010). Such devices generated temporary competitive leverages. The tourism industry became fragmented as tourism operators increasingly aimed at business clients. Over the years, direct reservation systems became more common and popular and covered a broader array of tourism products, to develop into a global distribution system (Pena, Jamilena, & Molina, 2013; Gratzer, Werthner, & Winiwarter, 2004). Tourism breaks new ground with regard to ICT development and application. The Internet is particularly vital to the tourism sector because it allows information about the tourism product and/or services, and customers to be collected, as well as information exchange. Online technologies in tourism businesses have considerably shaped relationships, interactions, dealings, and communications with the consumer and between the different tourism operators. The advantages of ICTs for tourism are considerable. The Internet can raise the degree of cooperation and communication between tourist operations, and facilitates more stable connection between external and internal technologies (Kronenberg, 2008; Buhalis & Law, 2008). Knowledge of the uses of the Internet, and the skill and resources needed to make the most of these uses may be insufficient, particularly as regards small and medium tourism businesses (Dasgupta, 2011; Main, 2002). This issue may particularly be important for tourism businesses in economies where infrastructure is weaker. With the growing popularity of e-commerce as a key medium for Web sites, particularly, and ICT, generally, have become necessary for all kinds of businesses. ICT may be viewed to have generally four distinct groups of services, namely, management information system (MIS), smart cards, mobile communication, and website (Dasgupta, 2011, p. 210). Applications of ICT in Various Activities in Tourism 1. Selecting and developing tourism site Geospatial information technologies 2. Marketing Inbound (market research), outbound (advertising, promotions, etc.) 3. Customer relationship management Home-destination-home Turn prospects into customers Book-travel-lodging-tours-miscellaneous Trip management: Pre-during-post 4. Operations Buying managing services and supplies Managing value chain 5. Managing and monitoring tourism site GIS, GPS *table taken from Dasgupta, 2011, p. 210 Tourism operations, obviously, are requiring vast information and, thus, efficient information and communication systems. Particularly, this progress was provoked by the development of the Internet, as the World Wide Web is counterbalancing the compromise between the number of individuals that can be reached at the one hand, and the degree of data/information diversity at the other hand. Furthermore, the Internet puts together transaction, collaboration, communication, and information procedures (Richards & Wilson, 2007; Longhi, 2009). Hence, conventional media are not able to produce the same network outcomes and, consequently, are becoming obsolete or less significant. In addition, the convenience of exchanging massive quantities of data through the Internet and the easing of communication difficulties are largely accountable for complex changes in behaviours and attitudes (Page & Connell, 2006; Longhi, 2009). For example, because of a greater availability of market information, Internet users become consistently up to date and are seeking for detailed, precise information about products and/or services. Furthermore, tourism products/services are assessed increasingly based on the quality of experience. Thus, conventional marketing strategies suggesting measurable market segments, discernible product offers, and discernible customer behaviour and attitude are moving towards an ‘experiential’ marketing strategy recognising concurrence of emotions and reason (Richards & Wilson, 2007, pp. xvii-xviii). In fact, a popular area of research in eTourism tries to determine the interconnected changes in behaviour with regard to the adoption, use, and acceptance of websites of tourism companies. ICTs have transformed the handling of supply functions in the tourism sector, particularly supply management and internet modes, through (Richards & Wilson, 2007, pp. 47-48; Buhalis, 1997): expanding the geographical reach of the range of operation and influence of a company; fully reorganising tourism intermediation process, or the process of acquiring supplier’s goods and negotiating them to customers, with the emergence of e-tourism; facilitating operations management in tourism businesses to aid in the handling of demand and supply more promptly and flexibly; enabling improved collaborating between constituents in the supply chain; aiding companies in identifying and appreciating what the tourist needs and to adjust the goods and/or services to the demands of the market; and assisting companies in understanding how to enhance productivity and success. Adopting ICT may demand business redesigning to apply technology so that companies can realise specific strategic goals, specifically promoting stronger relationships with clients; transforming information into a product; enhancing cost effectiveness; reducing costs of supply; diversifying products and/or services; and creating entry barriers (Zhou, 2004, Buhalis & Licata, 2002). This has resulted in the growth of electronic commerce through business to government (B2G), business to consumers (B2C), and business to business (B2B) (Page & Connell, 2006, p. 110). Buhalis (1998 as cited in Page & Connell, 2006, p. 110) explains how ICTs can be applied in a strategic way by companies: to enable new strategies of designing, implementing, and managing business operations; to enhance business profitability and outcomes, and to create new business opportunities; and to acquire strong competitive advantage. eCommerce, at the supply side, slowly revolutionised established value chain designs into ‘digitalised value networks’ typified by an unlimited presence of virtual markets (Zhou, 2004, pp. 60-61). A perfect model of recently developed virtual markets is online auctions. For example, the most flourishing online auction site—eBay—has become tantamount to global online auctions. Because of the great market prospect, an increasing number of hotel organisations lately has also began to trade accommodation services on eBay. Another case for structural adjustments in the tourism sector originates from the concept underlying Smart Business Networks (Kronenberg, 2008, p. 256). Because of their open design, they strengthen inter-company interaction without consolidated control. For example, hotel firms taking part in a smart business network may remarkably boost their occupancy, for they would get reservations from other hotels as well. Basically speaking, depending on the serving capacities of the suppliers and the particular demands of the customers, open agents would mechanically allocate demands among hotels within the system (Kronenberg, 2008, p. 256). Consequently, besides greater use of capacity, customer satisfaction would steadily rise. A customer typically buys ‘tourism product’ either through a regional tourism organisation (RTOs), through a tour operator, through a travel agent, or via ICT tools to buy the products. ‘Tourism product’ is described as a “service bundle being optimally portrayed and distributed electronically and jointly delivered by (usually small sized) enterprises” (Kronenberg, 2008, p. 249). It is remarkable that in a context of dwindling state economic resources, more ingenious RTOs are functioning as a mediator and generating resources through sale of tourism products and/or services. The flow of information at every point of sale is very important and in order for the process of information exchange to happen promptly, directly, and efficiently between the suppliers, mediators, and the consumers, ICTs are crucial (Paskaleva & Azorin, 2010). Even though ICTs are not the answer to weak business outcomes by tourism businesses, the application of ICTs does pose several important issues for the tourism industry, specifically continuous employee training and development, the launching and management of the best technology for business operations, and a long-term plan for their strategic application of technology. ICTs also have an additional crucial function to fulfil as regards the nature of the product of tourism, which is consumable, transient, and cannot be stockpiled or resold afterwards—ICTs are helpful in aligning supply with demand or trading and loading capacity, which is the major objective of tourism management (Chang & Chou, 2007). ICTs give merchants the opportunity to offer latest information about their products. In this regard, ICTs can facilitate collaboration within the tourism sector via prompt, open, and efficient communication and may provide several of the instruments to create global strategies. A major development which has taken place in tourism through the introduction of ICTs is in the capacity of the tourism sector to meet the evolving demands and needs of consumers looking for greater value for their money and premium quality. ICTs have created numerous prospects for the tourism sector to discover new means of satisfying their customers, where the fast growth of the more urbane, demanding ‘tourists’ drove tourism to cater to the requirements of the smaller market segments (Dasgupta, 2011). This is shown in the improved level of interactivity which ICTs are providing customers, especially in a period where precise information about the products and/or services being offered to customers is ever more sought for. This is driving the ‘one-to-one’ marketing technique, where acquiring information about the consumers, enhanced delivery of services, and consolidation of consumer demands (e.g. computerised check-out) are developed to improve the tourist experience (Mamaghani, 2009, p. 366). Indeed, ICTs have dramatically transformed tourism’s operational, distribution, and marketing processes. Even though ICT was already a major concern for the tourism sector in the past four decades, when the earliest global distribution systems (GDS) and computer reservations systems (CRS) arrived, ICT has developed into an actual strategic factor at present (Page & Connell, 2006, p. 113). Essentially, the major advantage tourism really acquires from ICT can be identified from the features of the tourism product itself (Pease et al., 2007; Bender, 2007). At the demand side, customers have to plan and to arrange their personalised tourism service bundle prior to its consumption. Hence, customers choose to interact and transact with ‘professionals’ to eliminate, or at least reduce, the possibilities of poor quality. Furthermore, similar to other service goods, tourism products can merely be experienced during a professional transaction between the customer and the supplier (Pease et al., 2007; Jayaprabha & Saradha, 2012). As expected, efficient communication among important suppliers is required by customers throughout all the different stages of the tour. On the other hand, within the supply side, processing of information and information itself are embodying critical aspects of competitive advantage. Above all, tourism companies may envision their service idea for targeted segments through multimedia technologies. Furthermore, beside this promotional input from ICT, web-based communication and information exchange occurs specifically to aid distribution functions, such as online ticketing, booking, and reservation (Frew, 2000, p. 140; Karipis, Tsimitakis, & Skoultsos, 2009). Hence, according to Pena and colleagues (2013), problems arising from unpleasant customer decisions and behaviour, such as cancellations and no-shows, could be lessened via the efficient application of ICT. Ultimately, after the computer reservation systems (CRS) and global distribution systems (GDS), with the launching of the Internet, numerous additional intermediaries joined the tourism sector, thus focusing themselves on particular operations and information services aimed at a certain group of tourism consumers and suppliers (Kronenberg, 2008, pp. 249-250). Consequently, the different ‘digitalised interfaces’ between supply and demand in the tourism market increased considerably. For the hotel industry, for example, the first ICT-driven providers of information were ‘online travel agents’, then ‘web-based reservation systems’ and ‘online booking platforms’ (Kronenberg, 2008, p. 250). In addition, market-based organisation of the numerous components of tourism supply—accommodation, transportation, etc—provided by tourism companies can be successfully reinforced by electronic systems as they enable product bundling, intermediation, and communication. Conclusions ICT has radically transformed the tourism industry. And the speed of transformation is accelerating. The Internet and associated e-commerce facilities, particularly in the tourism industry, are merely examples of this progress. ICT promotes economic progress with flexibility, functionality, communication, and accessibility. Global prospects for the tourism sector have massively progressed with the adoption of ICTs. Tourists have huge volumes of information that they can access anytime, anywhere. As a result, the tourism industry is compelled to become more focused on the enhancement of tourist experience in order to attract and retain customers. Tourism companies improve tourist experience by implementing ICTs to offer further convenience to the customers. The tourism marketing approaches should continuously progress to complement patterns of customer behaviour and IT development. With latest advancements in ICT the past has proven that customers modify behaviours relative to tourism processes. The survival and success of a tourism company will thus rely mostly on how competently it designs and implements information and communications technologies. References Bender, D.E. (2007) ‘Marketing in the digital mapspace: Digital maps and map-related services are becoming increasingly significant as marketing channel’, HSMAI Marketing Review 24(3), 12-16. Bentley, R.B. (1996) ‘Information technology and tourism: An update’, Tourism Management 17, 141-144. 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