Participatory approaches and geographical information systems (PAGIS) in tourism planning. For instance, before departure, the availability of information can affect travel planning while later on they may seek reassurance from review sites that they have selected the right products (Lehto, Kim, & Morrison, 2006). Law and Jogaratnam (2005) further suggested that IT can transform the nature of tourism and hospitality products, processes, businesses, and competition, and that tourism and hospitality organizations that have failed to master the right IT systems would find difficult to direct and manage their information‐intensive business damaging their competitiveness. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing: Vol. An exploratory investigation of web‐based tourist information search behavior. This study adopted content analysis to examine articles that were published by major tourism and hospitality journals between 2005 and 2007. Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism, 35. Additionally, the findings of Lu and Feng (2006) indicate that Chinese domestic tourists are less sophisticated than international tourists when purchasing hotel services and products, and that front desk and housekeeping services and room size are the most important factors that contribute to their perception of hotel standards. For instance, restaurant managers should also use their websites as a advertisement channel for targeting local clientele, rather than purely to attract tourists. Cobanoglu and DeMicco (2007) confirmed that around 15% of hotels had reported virus attacks, of which 7.7% reported “Denial of Service” attacks. As such, understanding customer perceptions is crucial to the development of a successful website (Benckendorff, 2006; Davidson & Yu, 2005; Law & Ngai, 2005). Examinations of the effect of IT applications on performance in lodging operations have shown that guest‐related interface applications are not as mission critical as front‐office applications and restaurant and banquet management systems (Ham, Kim, & Jeong, 2005; Kim & Ham, 2007). Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. Kaplanidou and Veogt (2006) can assess the influence of website content on trip planning by using a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The tourism and hospitality industries have widely adopted information technology (IT) to reduce costs, enhance operational efficiency, and most importantly to improve service quality and customer experience. Gartner predicts that by 2020, consumers worldwide will handle 85% of their … Wang and Fesenmaier (2006) argued that a successful web marketing strategy requires the integration and coordination of website features, promotion techniques, and CRM programs. At the same time they should advise them on the latest technical developments and how they could be integrated into business decision‐making process, strategic and operational marketing, and consumer interactivity in order to develop their competitiveness. Promotion on the Internet is generally regarded as being cost effective. Information search with mobile tourist guides: A survey of usage intention. Effect of information technology on performance in upscale hotels. An exploratory study examining information technology adoption and implementation in full‐service restaurant firms. Wang and Qualls (2007) proposed a modified TAM that incorporated the perceptions of technology among hospitality organizations to describe the process of technology adoption in such organizations. Technology crisis management in Mainland China: A study of hotels in Hangzhou. Adopting IT has helped hotels lower their operations‐related transaction costs (Chathoth, 2007), and the perceived performance of hotel managers has been shown to be positively associated with their interaction with IT and budgetary participation (Winata & Mia, 2005). Current ICT applications in the Tourism & Hospitality industry We have come a long way in the past few years in terms of the use of technology in the tourism and hospitality industry. To create a “best practice” standard for restaurant website analysis, Moreo, Cobanoglu, and DeMicco (2007) compared industry and academic restaurant websites by evaluating over 400 individual criteria in seven major categories. Alternative literature and tourist experience: Travel and tourist weblogs. Ho and Lee (2007) proposed a 5‐factor scale including information quality, security, website functionality, customer relationships, and responsiveness to measure e‐travel service quality. Differential impacts of information technology services in the Korean hotel industry: A study of management perceptions. Tourism and hospitality are social phenomena, and the industries associated with them are largely application oriented. Assessing use acceptance and satisfaction toward online travel agencies. What does the consumer want from a DMO website? The Internet and the occidental tourist: An analysis of Taiwan's tourism websites from the perspective of western tourists. Various modeling methods have been presented to analyze tourist data. In case studies of Greek hotel websites, the online reservation and price information sections of smaller innovative Greek hotel websites performed far better than the corresponding sections of the top 25 hotel brand websites (Zafiropoulos & Vrana, 2006; Buhalis & Kaldis, 2008). It is advantageous for tourism and hospitality managers in general and marketing managers in particular to be aware of the recent changes in IT and their relationship with customer service. In addition, qualitative meta‐analysis (Park & Gretzel, 2007). Lau, Lee, and Ho (2005) demonstrated three examples of how text mining can be used as a tool for online text analysis. The success of a business, to certain extent, depends on its ability to acquire and utilize updated information to assist its management and marketing processes. Hotels have brought about a different outlook to check-ins and check-outs. Although environmental concerns have been raised in the travel industry, many managers are not willing to deal with them due to resource constraints. High tech versus high touch: Visitor responses to the use of technology in tourist attractions. Mobile technology can also be used for coordination during large festivals, and an enjoyable and useful mobile coordination service motivates staff usage (Lexhagen, Nysveen, & Hem, 2005). To discuss the roles of the hospitality and tourism industry in the provision of employment in Nigeria. Technology has played an important role in achieving economic growth by generating an economy for traveler to travel. Getting tourists quicker to the fun part: Photographs, tourist types, community beings, and their implications for a 3D e‐tourism environment. Group sales and marketing in convention hotels: Internet and web usage. Websites should also cater for disabled users, and multiple language sites should be made available. Visitor numbers and feasibility studies: Predicting visitor numbers to Danish open‐air museums using GIS and multivariate statistics. Problematic integration theory has also been adopted to better understand online marketing activities (Han & Mills, 2006a). Hence, Buhalis and O'Connor (2005) further suggested that e‐tourism in the future will be focused on consumer‐centric technologies, and that organizations need to adopt IT to be able to offer this level of service and remain competitive and innovative. The importance of value‐added services to support the customer search and purchase process on travel websites. This article offers a comprehensive review of articles that were published in 57 tourism and hospitality research journals from 2005 to 2007. A way to achieve this goal is to constantly upgrade the IT knowledge and skills of staff, as in this way overall technical proficiency can be assured. Festival coordination: An exploratory study on intention to use mobile devices for coordination of a festival. Information technology publications in leading tourism journals: A study of 1985 to 2004. Information Technology in Hospitality, 14. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 15. International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration, 16. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 17. International Journal of Tourism Research, 19. A perceptual mapping of online travel agencies and preference attributes. They should also have a realistic expectation of the target users of their IT implementation and develop comprehensive solutions to satisfy the needs of all their stakeholders. Mr. Cowoo Chen's assistance in data collection is also acknowledged. Aesthetics, informativeness, and interactive features can also affect website effectiveness (Han & Mills, 2006b), while usability and content play a critical role in user satisfaction (Klausegger, 2005). A study of online hotel reservations on Asia Pacific‐based, European‐based, and North American‐based travel websites. Industrial practitioners should also look at customer comments on blogs and discussion forums in order to learn from each other's experience (Peters & Buhalis, 2005). Multi‐lingual information searching applications can thus provide comprehensive search results for people who need to search using a keyword in one language and look for a search result in another language (Li & Law, 2007). Rather than subjectively distinguishing the value of each attribute, automated software can provide a more convenient and objective way to evaluate websites (Chan & Law, 2006). A critical look at hotels' network security. Research has shown that many hotel managers consider IT outsourcing not purely because of cost savings but also for strategic reasons (Espino‐Rodríguez & Gil‐Padilla, 2005). For instance, the proceedings of ENTER conferences, which are organized by the International Federation on Information Technology and Travel and Tourism and represent the world's largest annual IT and tourism event, feature plenty of research articles on IT and tourism. According to Kotler et al. Not very willkommen: The Internet as a marketing tool for attracting German‐speaking tourists to Non‐European destinations. Business travelers who look for comprehensive IT services in hotels are willing to pay for certain IT services because they understand that hotels have to bear the high costs of implementing such technology (Yeh, Leong, Blecher, & Lai, 2005). This article offers a comprehensive review of articles that were published in 57 tourism and hospitality research journals from 2005 to 2007. A good recommender system should merge trust, exploratory browsing, and personal factors to suggest suitable solutions that will meet personal criteria and preferences (Bauernfeind & Zins, 2006). As a result, IT has played a secondary role, especially in the hospitality industry. The rapid development of IT in the past couple of decades has underscored the importance of understanding historical patterns and predicting future trends. The impact of technology in hotels: A case study of Istanbul and Ankara hotels. A new approach to CAI: Online applications for procedural based activities. To proffer solution to the above stated problems; 1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS. This is evident as about one fifth of the included articles are related to this subject. Understanding accommodation search query formulation: The first step in putting “heads in beds.”. The impact of the Internet on information sources portfolios: Insight from a mature market. In view of the paramount importance of IT applications in the tourism and hospitality industries and the absence of published articles that review the recent developments in this area, this article attempts to analyze the content of IT articles published in the major tourism and hospitality research journals in the period 2005 to 2007. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 37. Transformation of tourism distribution channels: Implications of e‐commerce for Turkish travel agencies. A study conducted by Correia and Elliott (2006) in South Africa showed that although mature travelers are viewed as a small homogenous group of customers, the market actually comprises many different types of people who are comfortable in using the Internet to purchase tourism products. However, mid‐segment hotels still rely on traditional distribution channels due to their lack of knowledge of electronic distribution (Dabas & Manaktola, 2007). IT not only can enhance learning experiences and reduce training costs by CAI, it is an important marketing channel for academic institutes and industry recruiting students and staff (Zakrzewski et al., 2005). With the heavy dependency on IT in the hospitality and tourism industries, system failure can have catastrophic consequences (Lu & Law, 2007). Response quality of e‐mail inquiries—A driver for knowledge management in the tourism organization? However, despite the enormous amount of effort spent by tourism and hospitality researchers on investigating IT, there are only a few reviews of the articles published on IT or the progress of IT in the tourism industry since its rapid growth in the early 1980s (Frew, 2000; Kirk & Pine, 1998; Kluge, 1996; Leung & Law, 2005, 2007; O'Connor & Murphy 2004, Buhalis & Law, 2008). However, Connolly (2005) argued that as hospitality is an emerging field, it is more useful to use case studies as a qualitative research method to understand complex IT phenomena. For customers searching on the Internet for the lowest room rates, the websites of travel agents and reservation agents are likely to be the best choice (Law, Chan, & Goh, 2007). With the advent of Information and communication technology (ICT) tools management in tourism and hospitality sector has become easier (Akehurst, 2008). Having analyzed e‐mail responses in 24 features, Murphy, Schegg, and Olaru (2007) recommended several areas that should be improved to enhance the quality of these responses. Successful websites must achieve a high hit and conversion rate, which is directly affected by consumer page clicking behavior, content, search engine optimization, and web page management (Murphy, Hofacker, & Racine, 2006). In particular, only three articles discussed customers' concerns on data privacy. Virtual reality mapping: IT tools for the divide between knowledge and action in tourism. The impact of information technology on future management of lodging operations: A Delphi study to predict key technological events in 2007 and 2027. Internet hotel reservations: The “terms and conditions” trap. It enables readers in general, and tourism and hospitality managers in particular, to better understand the latest research findings and some of the best managerial applications of IT in the field. Beritelli and Schuppisser (2005) stated that when implementing a new mobile project, the initial starting stage is the most critical, and trials among tourists can be used to test the feasibility of new business models. A computer‐supported collaborative learning (CSCL) approach in teaching research methods. Due to the high‐turnover rate and high‐training cost in the tourism and hospitality industries, computer‐assisted instruction (CAI) is an effective way to deliver training programs to employees. The accessibility of Queensland visitor information centres' websites. A literature review of information technology in the hospitality curriculum. As an alternative to analyzing numerical data, text mining is another good choice for analyzing tourist data. Challenges in mobile business solutions for tourist destinations—The trial case of St. Moritz. Long queues at the front desk during peak seasons are quite distressing for guests.Would you like to wait for a room key when you’re all jet lagged? Impact Information Technology on Tourism and Hospitality Tourism and hospitality industries are often defined as a system of innovation and production systems. Hence, Information Technology (IT) assists organization to manage information dynamically and influences business competitiveness through assisting decision makers to make appropriate investments and decisions. Kozak (2007) analyzed travelers from 36 countries to Turkey and concluded that different nationalities require different information sources. DiPietro, Wang, Rompf, and Severt (2007) found that upon arrival, the information that visitors receive can influence their venue decisions. IT can generate the knowledge at the center of a business's competitiveness (Chathoth, 2007; Ham, Kim & Jeong, 2005). To remain competitive, practitioners should explore the potential opportunities emerging through IT, and be proactive in recognizing the capability of technology. He discussed tourism in the three paradigms of tourism—namely as a language, a place of experience in space and time, and as an authentic experience. As such, Leung and Law (2005, 2007) examined IT‐related articles published in six leading hospitality and tourism journals over the past 20 years and identified that the largest number of articles were about general business applications. Such guests look forward to hotels adopting e‐commerce and IT applications that meet their needs (Yeh, Leong, Blecher, & Hu, 2005). A case study of U.S. convention and visitor bureaus showed that the capability of organizations influenced their IT usage and led to distinct implementation effects (Yuan, Gretzel, & Fesenmaier, 2006). www.Branding.States.US: An analysis of brand‐building elements in US state tourism websites. The use of problematic integration theory to assess destination online promotion activities: The case of Australia.com in the United States market. Destination image representation on the web: Content analysis of Macau travel related websites. A wolf in sheep's clothing? The Internet and small hospitality businesses: B&B marketing in Canada. At‐destination visitor information search and venue decision strategies. An overview of Information Technology in the Tourism Industry Abstract Tourism is an important sector in the economy contributing around 10% to worldwide GDP, projected to rise to nearly 11% by 2014 (World Tourism Council (2004). Determining the efficacy of data‐mining methods in predicting gaming ballot outcomes. For instance, Law (2005) introduced an Object‐Oriented Database Marketing model for application in Asia's hotel industry to enhance its marketing effectiveness; and Mills, Lee, and Douglas (2007) introduced a Modified Interactive Tourism Advertising Model that could improve a website's advertising effectiveness. Customer satisfaction and loyalty intention are strongly related to e‐travel service quality. For example, NTOs in the Caribbean have secured a competitive advantage by adopting the concept of the Unique Selling Proposition in promoting their websites (Miller & Henthorne, 2006). The relationships of meeting planners' profiles with usage and attitudes toward the use of technology. Stockdale (2007) thus proposed using self‐service technology to handle customer relationship management (CRM) to deal with this issue. UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal. A good website should be inclusive and should cater to the needs of different types of online users, including visually impaired and disabled users (Han & Mills, 2007; Shi, 2006; Williams & Rattray, 2005; Williams, Rattray, & Grimes, 2006). Due to the service‐oriented nature of the tourism and hospitality industries, many managers and employees have only limited IT knowledge (Law & Jogaratnam, 2005). Momis system also involves the management of lodging operations: a study of to. 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