Regarding the current
technological changes, what challenges must face the tourism sector?
The new communication
technologies change tourism’s rules of the game: Internet is not only a New Information and Communication Technology, but a
Relation Technology. From now until 2020, the key of tourism will be the personalization
of services for travellers, who ask for more and more adapted services according
to their age for example, but also adapted to the possibilities offered by the
visited city and country. Thus, there will be new types of relations between
the agencies of tomorrow and travellers, based on personal contact and online
digital services.
Then, social networks
will have a more and more determining influence with augmented reality as well.
For example, it will be possible to click on objects on places you visit like
monuments, paints, mountains, to receive and share a virtual information from
Internet on your Smartphone. People working in the tourism industry need to
adapt to the implementation of this “digital technology civilization” by
understanding the importance of these new tools to
create added value in their relations with travellers. Then, they must be able to
estimate the impacts thanks to a follow-up of
their relationships with customers. Finally, it is essential to understand what
travellers do with Web tools, which new economic models emerge in the digital
technology world and how tourists are affected by buzz and social networks.
In this way, a new “traveller
life cycle” appears and impacts the tourism economy. Before, travellers booked
their whole journeys through big agencies and tour operators. Today, the traveller
is at the centre of a communication system putting him in touch with the
different elements of his journey, through Global Distribution Systems (GDS)
for example, which only professionals used formerly. Thus,
there is from now on an added value by synergy between these various elements
rather than by addition, as during the linear stages of the traditional
approach. Nevertheless, agencies will still be important in the coming years
because human contact, customer knowledge and its evolution in the time are essential to the customization and adaptation of the
traveller’s journey. Numerous start-ups already build themselves up, offering
an online help for journey preparation and customization. This specific
economic model of Internet is said to be of the
“long tail”. It means that big companies of the tourism industry are going to
be more and more connected to small companies in order to face tourists’
expectations and customize their offers.
To conclude, we can
say that new technologies impact the tourism sector. But the current evolution
is not only technological, but also sociological. Emotion, sharing and
knowledge will become the main values of tourism. But also empathy, solidarity
and respect for diversities. We see an increasing importance of collective intelligence
and network collaboration. Internet and social networks improve proximity
stimulating social link. The digital link leads to a physical link and thus to
a tourism with a human face. But e-tourism also has to join ecotourism, ecology
representing a constant concern for travellers. There is not only “sun, white
beaches, or blue lagoon” anymore, but also cultural diversities between
populations and environmental protection.
References:
“L’impact d’internet
sur la gestion de la relation client”, Cadiar and De Moerloose (2002)
“Digitally Enabled Social
Change: Activism in the Internet Age”, Earl and Kimport (2011)
No comments:
Post a Comment