Positive And Negative Consequences Of Technology Advancements Upon Tourism Business

Introduction

Technology has changed the life of people based on the way it has transformed their way of carrying out certain activities. The tourism and hospitality industry is such a sector that it witnessed a great deal of change brought about through the use of technology. It is not surprising that the tourism industry is ranked as one of the best performing industries around the globe and technology has contributed a great deal towards this achievement. Technology is paramount in the success of the tourism and hospitality industry irrespective of having some flaws as supported by evidence in various research papers, including insights relevant for those seeking business dissertation help. The current essay thus works on analysing the possible advantages and disadvantages of using technology upon the tourism related business.

Background

The tourism industry is termed as one of the best performing industries at both national and international level. According to Havierniková, Lemańska-Majdzik and Mura (2017), the tourism industry makes a 10% contribution in the GDP of the world. Percentage is expected to rise in a span of 5 years (Buhalis and Yen, 2020). The force associated with the rapid group is the adoption of technology in its operation and management of tourism related business functions. Several businesses operating within the tourism industry embraced information technology in their operation, standing a good chance in obtaining great returns of profit of the same (Kellner and Egger, 2016). Computer system for reservation is a simple example of information technology used to reach the target customers

Technology within the industry

Before the implementation of technology it was highly difficult for the hospitality industry to exhibit IT services to the potential customer. Advertisements in the tourism industry during the initial days were highly expensive as potential customers are always miles apart (Boiko, Vedmid and Okhrimenko, 2017). However the implementation of information technology has made the business transaction quite easy by enhancing the existing base of potential customers. The fact that consumers are able to interact with one another all over the globe, ensuring suitable communication underlines one of the greatest advantages of technology. Hence, it can be conclusively stated, technology has made it easy and cheap to avail the market services and related products (Veretekhina et al. 2017). An impulse inter-organizational system connecting the organisation was the simplest form of technology. However, due to the high cost the business could not meet the use of such technology causing them to opt for traditional modes.

The emergence of a global distribution system facilitates communication and connection across the border. This further allows fast exchange of information, helping to enhancing the industry in gaining more customers (Hassan et al. 2018). The global distribution is a form of inter-organisational system emerging from computer reservation. This further helps them to integrate information from the aviation sector. These integrations provide the boost to the hospitality and tourism industries as the customer is able to make reservations at one place. The mentioned system was used in 1960 integration to the modern computer was difficult, rather impossible (Ivanov, 2019). The gradual advancement of technology witnessed the emergence of the mobile phones and social media, supported by the World Wide Web transforming the consumers to interact with one another while conducting business activities (Ukpabi and Karjaluoto, 2017). Tourism industry markets their services through the use of the internet. This internet works on connecting the consumers all over the world and turning the world into a global village, where people can interact with one another in different locations and in real time. Technology helps people to share their opinions and views without the need to meet physically and lead to the development of various forms of platforms on social media interfaces that facilitates interconnection. These days social media platforms are sources of such information used by the tourism industry to reach across customers all over the globe leading to an increase in the number of tourist visits. However, Huang et al. (2016) are use a technology to the use of internet brings various changes on the ways people tend to carry the business

The transformation is inclusive of providing and weight through with ideas can be changed into marketable products. The marketable innovation can be later transmitted to a wider market at an affordable cost of accessing this market and searching the potential buyers. The easy access related to the internet based market, works on offering innovative products and has worked on changing the way information is being shared between organisations and individuals Xiang (2018). The benefits of technology within the tourism and hospitality industry are innumerable.

Advantages of technology in the chosen sector

The benefit of information technology is highly appreciated and it is tested in every aspect of human life. The technology emerged out as a vital aspect in people's lives and people are able to share information in remote locations with the use of the internet and personal computers in real time (Buhalis, 2019). The capability that technology brings with itself is manifested in major sectors of economies, the inspector being one of those that require ample amounts of marketing all over the globe. The use of the internet has achieved marketing at an affordable cost. The business has established different sites that can be used to advertise services to the global customers while tailoring their needs accordingly. Another advantage of technology is the aspect of globalisation. The world has been constructed into small villages and people are highly connected through the use of internet networks and social media platforms (Kim and Kim, 2017). Information is transferred faster with just one click from the mouse. The tourism industry used in this scope shares ideas on several businesses. It has helped in bringing closer the people who grew disturbed due to geographical boundaries and also people from different cultures. Industries dependent on information technology ads on a boost as people are able to access the needed information about the tourist spot they can visit for spending their leisure time. According to Cai and McKenna (2019), people from the UK scene to make use of the internet for booking trips to several holiday destinations. The rate of internet based booking is increasing on a daily basis.

For example approximately 75 million people travelling across the globe are seen to make use of the internet to obtain the necessary information about the destination (Dadwal and Hassan, 2016). Hence it can be clearly stated that the internet is used to book checks and compare the prices scheduling the travelling options to different tourist destinations. Some travel for leisure and pay the host country huge amounts of foreign currency exchange for hosting the tourists in their specific destinations. The number of bookings increased to a greater extent in the last decade. A study conducted by İlkan et al. (2017), added the fact that online travelers make use of the internet to obtain the updates and receive information about the destination and related logistics pertaining to the travel. Therefore hospitality and tourism businesses transact their services through the use of the internet. For example, tourists book places of visit on landing the destination in advance showing the way technology has worked on transforming the industry (Adukaite, van Zyl and Cantoni, 2016).

In the past it was not only difficult but costly to travel acid involved cumbersome paperwork processes that people need to go through. However once the tourist reached the specified destination then did not have to look for a place to stay. Study of online travelers show that the majority of people travel for leisure or pleasure and technology helps these people to search for maps and direction and the amount of money to be spent making the travel experience memorable. The logistics are easily accessible over the internet and has become an important medium of making choices and budgets. This is with regard to the location of a place that the person wishes to visit the availability of the information over the internet can motivate the tourist to make decisions and persuade them to experience a memorable trip (Drosos et al. 2017).

Technology has transformed at faster rate making information easily available over the internet through the use of cellular phones. People across the world are able to gain access to information through the use of their phones and even communicate it with one another (Benckendorff et al. 2019). The platform has established the tourism industry to market their products and services over the internet. People travelling just for fun; remain in touch with their friends and family members contributing to increase in the number of travel across the border by several people (Buonincontri and Micera, 2016). According to the study carried out by Sahoo et al. (2017), social media several users and roughly 360 million people visit and use social media for the purpose of interaction. For example, the millennial are seen to make use of social media for collecting the relevant reviews so as to make sure that they are spending their money in the right sources.

Hence it can be easily stated that social media acts as a great way of marketing to the customers as customers these days are seen to rely on online reviews before making the final decision of purchase. As supported by Veretekhina et al. (2017), social media related technology is used for keeping in touch with people all over the globe while sharing ideas. Hence, it is important to provide a strong platform for the business to market the services and products. The tourist can work on obtaining the right kind of information about the destination they wish to travel and the potential services provided through the social media platforms. Hence it can be concluded that technology plays an immense role of success within the chosen industry. However there has been a series of negative impact caused due to technology in the tourism industry

Disadvantages of technology in the chosen sector

Technology creates challenges in the industry of tourism. as stated by Hassan et al. (2018), virtual world creates challenges in regards to maintenance and follow up it demands a lot of investment as technology needs immense security use and in terms of updating the possible broken links, if any and responding to the blogs that are sent to the customers for obtaining the feedback and tracking the consumer behaviour. Potential visitors change their minds at the last moment if their queries are not rightly answered (Ivanov, 2019). One more challenge is the increasing level of hacking and cyber crime related issues. People may obtain attentiveness in a system hosted on the internet and simultaneously gain access to information that might be confidential. Such individuals may falsify information obtained leading to misinterpretation and loss of potential customers (Huang et al. 2016). In addition to that the number of customers visiting the website may not be adequate enough as per the expectation causing used loss is a company main failed to generate the expected revenue affecting the level of income. Another prime disadvantage that has been brought about by technology in the tourism industry is the aspect of unemployment (Xiang, 2018).

People initially worked in hotels as tour guides lost their jobs due to the advent of the internet for cutting the operational cost. The scope of job creation in the hospitality industry is greatly reduced as most of the marketing related activities are done through use of the internet. Additionally, privacy has been influenced in a negative way with the use of the internet. Research based study conducted by Buhalis (2019) people have knowledge of business websites for stealing important information. The proliferation has increased over the internet creating a sign that there is a lack of organisation within the market which is already highly saturated. Several websites are not familiar with the clients making it difficult for the potential customers to locate them. Intermediaries that link the customers to businesses provide other challenges on the internet. They have paid for the services hence resulting in poor profit revenue and homogeneity of business website (İlkan et al. 2017)

Conclusion

Hence it can be easily stated that technology has made a strong contribution to ensure successful growth of the tourism and hospitality industry across the global platform. Countries that were flexible enough and embraced technology with a positive perspective have benefited by enhancing their business operation through the use of technology and witnessing increased revenue. The potential of technology is exorbitant. However, technology demands people with knowledge and expertise for reaping the overwhelming potential of technology. A lack of knowledge in operation of technology based software can consume a lot of time and cause shift of concentration from core competencies. On the other hand technology made several people unemployed affecting the living standard since they are dependent on their job as a source of income. Hence right kind of strategic plan for ensuring smooth use of technology without any possible challenges cancer pass the mentioned negatives as stated in the paper

Reference list

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