How ICTs are Used in Tourism Sector?
Hospitality Sector
Rapid changes in the business and in the hospitality sector have forced
hotels to use technology with newer and more efficient methods.
Increased importance and sensitivity attached to guest relations have
forced hotels to use computers for bookings, food and beverage
management, sales, maintenance, security, and accounting. The use of
technology increases not only the efficiency and productivity of the
operations of hotels, but also their profitability by facilitating cost
reduction (Collins & Malik, 1999).
With the establishment of websites, hotels can carry out their
bookings, ticket sales, and promotion activities faster.
Hospitality enterprises offer online booking and inexpensive
service to their customers 24 hours a day through their websites .
According to Lee, Barker, and Kandampully (2003), the use of
technology by hospitality businesses today can be divided into two
areas, operational and management, and customer areas,
it is possible to examine the usage areas of the technology in hotels
according to different departments.
The front office management system, which is one of the most
frequently used technological factors, starts with the reservation of the
customer and continues with reservation confirmations and check-in.
With the front office management system, it is possible to perform
different operations such as the list of expected guests, the list of guests
to leave, and room status reports, front cashier operations, transactions
related to agencies, foreign exchange transactions, housekeeping and
phone calls lists quickly and easily (Kantarcı, 2004, p. 74).
The food and beverage management system used in hospitality
management
With the introduction of technology into the kitchen, operations such as
standard prescription production controls, recipes, production suitability
of recipes, purchase controls, orders, inventory turnover speed, menu
controls, menus for patients, food material prices, financial controls,
sales price definitions, patient menu costs, and percentage of food cost
are performed more easily and quickly (Buchanan, 1987).
. Security and phone systems used in hotels are established to prevent
fire, theft, attacks, etc., and include services such as central fire
prevention control unit, electronic locking systems, body detectors,
master cards, and computerized power plants (Okumuş, 1997, pp. 18–
19). Technological services used in customer rooms include electronic
lock system, high-speed Internet access, in-room paid TV channels, in-
room game systems, and voice over IP (VOIP), voice mail service, in-
room safes, in-room control panels, and in-room sports systems (AHLA,
2008).
Travel Sector
The travel sector, which is undergoing constant change and
development, is heavily influenced by global trends. The effects of IT on
travel businesses are seen in areas such as the marketing, distribution,
and management of tourism products; ICTs increase managerial
efficiency and productivity as well as allow businesses to adapt to the
environment they are in and to take advantage of new opportunities
(Buhalis, 1998, p. 410). The knowledge gained by travel agencies in the
electronic field leads them to provide up-to-date and quality service
(Sheldon, 1993, p. 42). The emergence and widespread use of IT has led
to tremendous changes in the travel industry.
Tourism intermediaries have a very important position in the complex
structure of the tourism system. With ITs, significant differences have
arisen in the structure and functioning of the travel sector. The up-to-
date information shared on the Internet has led to the emergence of e-
intermediaries. Tourism suppliers have created e-commerce applications
that provide direct links to their booking systems. Traditional agencies
have built their own online platforms, which has led to the emergence of
a large number of web-based travel agencies. Internet portals like
Yahoo, Altavista, and Excite have provided travel content from Internet-
based agents and developed online travel distribution (Buhalis & Licata,
2002).
Thanks to a number of developments, travel businesses can offer
marketing services to customers on more flexible platforms. The
different features of Internet-based commerce used by travel companies
can be expressed as follows (Standing & Vasudevan, 2000, p. 22):
Developing and strengthening customer relations by establishing
direct communication with customers through websites
Using current and potential customers as a resource and gathering
information to build customer profiles used in marketing and
product development
Establishing information partnerships among businesses to provide
a better service to potential consumers
Sales of products and services
Examining users’ profiles to provide them with specific
information
Benefiting from the information and products created by users.
According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (1999, p. 67),
the Internet is frequently used by travel agencies as it offers products at
low costs, provides more detailed and authentic information than
traditional intermediaries, creates a quick and easy booking opportunity
for consumers, and saves a great deal on production and distribution.
According to Porter (2001), in the early 1990s, travel agencies were
undecided whether to render service on the Internet; however, in the
2000s, they began to doubt their competence on the Internet. According
to Barnett and Standing (2001), travel businesses that offer qualified
online services should have a structure that is flexible in providing new
travel products, is the most cost-effective, is specialized in Internet
service, and is able to find new customers. According to Şimşek
(2005), for travel agencies to carry out effective and qualified sales on
the Internet, they should register themselves in the search engines via
keywords, provide accurate and sufficient information to consumers, and
include sales (reservation) forms and e-mail addresses at the bottom of
the page.
As Zhou (2004) and Pemberton, Stonehouse, and Yarrow (2001) point
out, computers entering the travel industry in the 1950s and the “Central
Reservation System” that emerged in the 1970s allowed travel agencies
to perform their operations in the most accurate, fastest way with
minimum cost and the least number of mistakes. The “Global
Distribution Systems,” which emerged in the 1980s, developed the
process further. In the 1990s, the Internet became influential in the travel
industry as well as in many other sectors. Central reservation and global
distribution systems include travel, hospitality, entertainment, tourist
attractions, and package tours. Information systems provide the tourist
with great flexibility, allowing bookings until the last moment; they also
allow easy, inexpensive, and fast analysis of customer requests and
expectations through market research (Buhalis, 1998). The first central
reservation system emerged with the cooperation of IBM and American
Airlines in order to enable more efficient management of seat
availability under the name of “Semi-Automatic Research Environment”
(Zhou, 2004, p. 157).
In addition to computerized reservation systems, travel companies use
global distribution systems. This system consists of a combination of
different booking systems such as airline operators, tour operators,
hotels, car rental companies and includes one or more reservation
systems that allow distribution of products and access to different
countries. In the twenty-first century, global distribution systems became
one of the important elements of tourism enterprises. Global distribution
systems reduce the costs of enterprises and increase their productivity.
Global distribution systems offer services such as ticketing, booking,
sales, quick and easy access to flight information, reviewing flight
procedures and rules, access to information regarding the latest flight
cancelations, tracking of low prices, car rental and booking in hospitality
enterprises. The most known of the global distribution systems are
Amadeus, Galileo, Saber, and Worldspan (Yüksek, 2013, p. 23).
Travel companies have been largely influenced by developments in IT
and have begun to use e-commerce applications (Guo, Zheng, Ling, &
Yang, 2014; Pröll & Retschitzegger, 2000). ICTs affecting the whole
world have also affected the travel industry (Buhalis & Law, 2008, p.
609); a number of services such as buying plane tickets, booking hotel
rooms, and car rental started to be performed on the Internet (Law &
Wong, 2003, p. 118; Ling, Guo, & Yang, 2014; El-Masry & Agag,
2016, p. 97; Tugulea, Bobâlcă, Maha, & Maha, 2014, p. 193).
Attraction Sector
The technology used in every aspect of life in this age, defined as
information age, continues to make life easier. Technological
developments and the Internet that facilitate human life have had a major
impact on the activities of businesses that serve in a different sector with
the influence of globalization and have increased their productivity. One
of the last reflections of technological developments in our age has been
on destinations and attraction centers. Before visiting an area,
individuals can examine the region on the Internet and obtain
information about important sightseeing locations and routes. Cultural
and touristic values are defined as products and tourists as consumers.
Since the cultural and touristic values promoted by the consumers are
geographically distant from each other, there is a great need for the
Internet for a strong and broad cooperation between tourists and those
who promote attraction centers.
One of the most frequently used Internet access tools, web pages, is
multi hypermedia systems, which can easily promote countries and
regions via the Internet. Websites with promotional films, photos, virtual
trips, animations, maps, voice promotions, e-journals, e-brochures,
promotions, guest books, and related information are today the most
frequently preferred promotional pages. Computer networks that are one
of the networks created outside the web are a service that can respond to
the communication request in an electronic environment and can send e-
mail for advertising, promotion, information, and marketing purposes.
Another tool used to promote attraction centers is Internet advertising,
such as banners, viral ads, private or official websites, links from other
sites, and e-mail ads. Internet advertising is an important step in meeting
the demand for e-commerce attraction centers, whose number is
increasing across the world. Another means of promoting attraction
centers on the Internet is social media. Social media has a wide range of
content such as social networks, multimedia sharing, professional
networks, blogs, forums, microblogs, instant messaging environments,
complaint and suggestion sharing networks, and e-mail. Another
promotional tool is online media sharing sites such as YouTube. These
contribute to the promotion of attraction centers and guide potential
users. Mobile devices such as mobile tablets, smart phones and mobile
applications, mobile games, QR codes are fast and high-return
promotional tools that tourists can use before or during their visit to the
destination (Çakır & Yalçın, 2012, p. 18).
