Essay Help on Tourism, Hospitality and Events

Tourism – The most notable phenomena of socioeconomic activity in twentieth century. It is an activity which is performed by a group of small people who are well off (WTO, 2000). Until the end of World War II, this activity slowly became a mass phenomenon and currently a large number of people reaches the world using tourism and it has become a very important facet of global integration (Sharpley, 2010). The first topic given is chosen in the essay which is related to innovation and technology use in tourism so as to attract new visitors and retain existing ones. The role of managers in this respect has been discussed. The essay has been divided into three parts. The first part related to introduction in which tourism is defined and then development has been discussed. In the second part the essay topic is reviewed in detail from every perspective and funnelling process has been used for that purpose. Some examples are also discussed in this section. In the end conclusion is given in which managerial implications and main findings of topic are discussed.

 

Taking into account the Australian tourism industry, it has a significant contribution to the economic activity as well as employment. According to the statistics provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria accounts for the largest contribution in the tourism industry and they are representing 80 percent of the output. It has also been published that the output of this industry in 2009/10 was less and a total of $40.639 million direct contribution has been made in GDP through tourism (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS] 2009). This shows that tourism is a strong industry in Australia.

Innovation is defined by Schumpeter (1934) as transformation involving new combinations which holds a qualitative importance for the business leaders or entrepreneurs. This is the widely accepted definition. Innovation in tourism lacks a clear justification in the literature (Hjalager, 2002) as there is inertial or slow behaviour the reasons being the mass products are used that have high quality and publicity. It can attract mass tourists, the absence of competition, costs as well as the risks are high, small firm size and adoption of technology is slow (Weiermair and Peter, 2002). In many research studies, it has been mentioned that tourism is taken as service industry. The approaches of innovation, which are applied in the manufacturing sector can be applied to the service sector which includes tourism too. Likewise, researchers, practitioners and authors have neglected this area, the managers of the attractions have also not given attention in attracting new visitors and retaining the existing ones. Innovation in tourism is classified as technological (technological/non-technological), nature (process/product/organisational/market/ad-hoc innovation), and intensity of discontinuity (radical / incremental / architectural innovation) (O’Sulvian, 2005). The innovation, which is discussed in this essay is related to technology and its uses in tourism.

Technology mainly in the tourism sector is regarded as how well the companies or the tourism agencies communicate and market their packages to the existing consumers and how new or potential consumers are attracted to the destinations (Buhalis, 2000). In this regard hotels, airlines, leisure clubs and other destination managers adopt different technology based mediums through their messages can be delivered. Technology in tourism is used to communicate as mentioned before and in the current era different mediums such as television advertisement, social media interaction (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and applications), print media etc. is used to reach to the target audience and to penetrate different markets.

The world is accompanied by the information age and adoption of information technology is increasing rapidly. The world has now transformed into a global village. With just a click a potential tourist can search about the destinations. Through internet all the information related to tourism and travel can be shared. The internet is accessible through laptops, mobile telephones, PC and cable-television and through these mediums more informed choices are made by the consumers (Galloway et al., 2004). Technological evolution over past period is an indication of change in tourism. Use of software in relation to the internet has declined. After the database applications, internet innovative projects are on the second number (Longhi, 2009). One of the most common information technology used by the tourism industry is an ICT (Information communication technologies). This has caused changes in the demand and supply in the industry. Much in demand for individualized and flexible options and quality information has made tourism as personalized. This is also the consequence of tourism. The customers can now research through technology using different social media platforms about the ratings of the destinations and the services which the hotels are providing. This is the strength of ICT and many hotels such as Ritz Carlton Hotel, Marriott Hotels and Resorts, Hyatt Hotels and Resorts have strengthened their brand image using ICT (Cooper et al., 2005). These hotels and resorts are using ICT to manage destination resources, manage sites and attractions, manage tourist statistics and many more (Jadhave and Mundhe, 2011).

Another technological advancement is a mobile technology (Grun et al., 2008). Tourism is pioneer of e-commerce and likewise it is a pioneer of mobile technologies. With the emergence of this technology, innovation has outgrown the technological changes between the relationship of firm and inter-firm so as to address the tourists (Zeni et al., 2009). Most of the companies are interacting directly with their consumers. For any offerings, call agents make calls to the existing and potential consumers.

With the inception of smartphones, many other technologies have emerged out of which Apps is the most popular application. Considering the Australian tourism industry, there are many companies having their Apps such as Stamford Hotels & Resorts, Gold Coast Traveler, Queensland offering services to navigate hotels, dining in places, Virgin Australia, Australia travel guide and many more. These Apps are free and these have made it easier for the tourist to search for a place. One of the recent policy of Virgin Australia was to promote American visitors and they offered lower fares. This increased flow of American tourists. This campaign was notably marketed through the company website, Facebook and different other mediums.

There are many implications for the managers so that they can attract new and retain existing consumers. First of all, tourism companies are small firms, so there managers must be aware of all the customers and should have databases of existing customers. Through this any new offering can send to the consumers using email. Secondly, the manager should have access to the Facebook fan page through which manager can directly communicate with the consumers. Thirdly marketing through media should be done through the Australian tourism bureau. There should be applications (apps) developed by the hotels and airlines so that direct communication with the consumer can be made. These are a few recommendations which are directly connected with the technology. Technology and product innovation in tourism is related to how well the tourism sector uses information technology and the internet to reach the mass medium. In the end it is concluded that tourism industry in Australia is strong but there is need to adopt innovativeness using technology. Managers should keep on updating technology usage.

 

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2009). Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account, 2007- 08. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, ACT. Retrieved from: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/5249.02007-08?OpenDocument, Retrieved on: 1^st August 2015

Buhalis, D. (2000). Marketing the competitive destination of the future. Tourism Management, Vol. 21(1), pp. 97-116

Cooper, C., Fletcher, J., Fyall, A., Gilbert, D. and Wanhill, S. (2005). Tourism Principles and practices, Third Edition, Pearson Education.

Grün, C., Werthner, H., Pröll, B., Retschitzegger, W., & Schwinger, W. (2008). Assisting tourists on the move, an evaluation of mobile tourist guides. In X. Busquets, & J. Wareham (Eds.), Proc. of 7th International conference on mobile business (pp. 171e180).

Hjalager, A. M. (2002). Repairing innovation defectiveness in tourism. Tourism Management, Vol. 23, pp. 465-474.

Jadhav, S. &  Mundhe, S. D. (2011), Information technology in Tourism, International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technologies, Vol. 2 (6) , pp. 2822-2825

Longhi, C. (2009). Internet and organisation of the industry in tourism: a focus on the distribution of travel and tourism services. International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing, 1(2), 131e151.

O’Sullivan, M. (2005), ‘Finance and innovation,’ in J. Fagerberg, D. Mowery and R. R. Nelson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Innovation. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK.

Schumpeter, J. (1934). The Theory of Economic Development. Boston, Harvard University Press.

Sharpley, R. (2010), Tourism and Sustainable Development: Exploring the Theoretical Divide, Journal of Sustainable Tourism. Vol 8 (1), pp1-19

Weiermair, K.; Peters, M. (2002). “Innovation and Innovation behaviour in hospitality and tourism: Problems and Prospects”,; “Tourism in Asia: Development, Marketing and Sustainability”, Fifth Biennial Conference, Conference proceedings, Hong Kong, pp. 600-612.

World Tourism Organization (WTO), (2000). Basic References on Tourism Statistics, Madrid, WTO.

Zeni, N., Kiyavitskaya, N., Barbera, S., Oztaysi, B., & Mich, L. (2009). RFID-based action tracking for measuring the impact of cultural events on tourism. In W. Höpken, U. Gretzel, & R. Law (Eds.), Information and communication technologies in tourism 2009, Proceedings of the international conference in Amsterdam (pp. 223e235). The Netherlands: Springer Vienna.