Tourism, technology and ICT: a critical review of affordances and concessions

Abstract

The digital information age has changed global tourism in profound ways. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are pervasive, and they have become inextricably linked with contemporary consumer cultures. ICTs represent affordances: to apprise, plan, order, network, socialize, stream, transact and rate. These are remunerated with concessions in the form of consumer data that is used to determine product/ service marketability, and to predict and manipulate consumer choices. As a result, ICTs have profoundly changed society, with repercussions for identity formation, social norms, and business structures. Tourism is at the forefront of these developments: as a driver of ICT introductions, an arena for testing & trialing, and a global market. This paper critically examines these developments and its linkages to tourism and sustainability goals, concluding that existing academic assessments are optimistic, simplistic and monocausal, with a focus on business and marketing opportunities. Tourism appears to have developed through four stages of ICT adoption -opportunity, disruption, immersion and usurpation -, which reflect on new opportunities and risks, and the need for more critical evaluations of the implications of the ICT economy.

Between hope and despair sensegiving and sensemaking in hotel organizations during the COVID-19 crisis

“…Almost overnight, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, causing a worldwide crisis. The pandemic has severely impacted society with social distancing, community lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, self-imposed or mandatory quarantines, closed borders, travel bans, and varying degrees of business constraints as well as increased need for medical care ( Gössling, 2021 ). Just like all other industries, the pandemic hit the hospitality industry quickly when the world economy suddenly was shut down ( Sakurai & Chughtai, 2020 ).…”

“…Just like all other industries, the pandemic hit the hospitality industry quickly when the world economy suddenly was shut down ( Sakurai & Chughtai, 2020 ). However, the hospitality industry is one of the industries most affected as the pandemic has had severe effects, with many constraints on how they do business, resulting in far-reaching effects such as temporarily closed hotels, mass unemployment in the sector, and fast-changing restrictions from governments ( Gössling, 2021 ). In a very short period of time, hotels lost as much as 99% of their bookings, faced huge financial losses and went into crisis mode.…”

Tourism Management Strategies under the Intelligent Tourism IoT Service Platform

“…Firstly, the key to the network platform programmed services lies in the common needs of the possible information interaction services in the process of consumer tourism for excavation, and the corresponding information service scheme for these needs for optimized design. Secondly, the system development of hardware and software is related to various intelligent terminals and their networked links [ 15 ]. Finally, there are the network platform programmed services to achieve the whole process of peer-to-peer docking of tourist demand and tourism supply information.…”

Critical Success Factors Associated to Tourism e-Commerce: Study of Peruvian Tourism Operators

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