We live in a
fast paced environment where technology is one of the most important subjects
that influences industries and customers. Tourism industry as we have noticed
is such a field that needs and uses IT to develop, design, promote, and market
its services. Information technology has a key role in tourism. Technology has
an important role in the travel industry, especially in the online travel
agencies (OTA’s). Let’s see the latest trends on IT in tourism. We identified two lately posted cases; the
first one is associated with Airbnb and the IT tool that they have designed for
marketing and customer purposes, while the second one explains how Expedia has introduced
a new tool to update last minute rooms. It seems to us that consumers are
driven by technology when booking, planning, or experiencing a trip.
Expedia launches new tool to
facilitate last minute bookings
Expedia has
just added a new tool to the Expedia Partner Central (EPC) extranet, where
hotel managers upload room rates provided to their collaborating travel
agencies. The Sell Tonight tool allows revenue managers to update room rates
and be visible within 15 seconds across every Expedia and Hotels.com point of sale. Expedia
announces this step as a required transformational change in order to push a
last-minute price cuts for room rates. This tool has not been introduced to
Europe yet: the first hotel partners introducing the tool were some selected
hotel partners in Las Vegas by mid-January and later on released to all
American hotels. A launch all over the world is planned for a few months later.
As the American market is different from markets such as Europe and Asia,
Expedia may face the risk of adapting this new IT tool. There may be a
reluctant behavior of the hotel managers because they prefer putting low-rate
rooms on opaque sites in order to not damage brand perception.
AIRBNB introduce an IT marketing
tool to track customers
Airbnb
designed a new IT technology, which is a more data-driven approach to marketing a
year’s worth of Airbnb growth. The new IT tool is an interactive Airbnb map that is able to show
in real time the Airbnb activity all over the world including off guest
check-ins and global hotspots. By introducing this marketing tool, the company aims
is to show how small and approachable the globe can be with Airbnb.
550K à checked in on New Year’s Eve
91K à new guests
using Airbnb for the first time
22K àopened their
home to travellers
Andrew
Schapiro, Head of Art Department mentioned that; “Part of the challenge of
building this experience was thinking through how we can marry the scale of
Airbnb experiences happening around the globe with the nature of these
experiences. The connections people are making are deeply human and personal.
So we decided to take a somewhat whimsical and playful approach with the map,
bringing life through figures and geographic elements that represent the
diversity of the planet.”
Airbnb seems
to follow the current trends. Social media like facebook and foursquare have
already introduced this tracking trend, successfully. Airbnb by developing this
type of IT tool is managing to remain vivid and competitive through the travel
market.
The video shows how the interactive map works: you can see how many guests
globally are on Airbnb by real time here.
Planning is
associated with LOOKING and Booking implies ACTING. All in all, technology is
undoubtedly a valuable tool for both companies and customers. On one hand, IT
in tourism is a clever way to track customer’s behavior and facilitate
companies to understand customers’ preferences and needs. On the other hand, it
can be really useful for the customers as well, since customers become more
involved to the service that they are looking for. However, it is important to
mention that many steps need to be taken in order to ensure that customers are
aware enough of all these technological advancements that are taking place in
the travel industry.
Konstantina Tsotra & Greta Erschbamer
Sources:
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