E-Tourism TABLE OF CONTENTS

E-TOURISM

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................................................................3
CASE STUDY EVALUATION................................................................................................6
DISCUSSION............................................................................................................................8
NEW SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY.....................................................................................10
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
E-Tourism can be defined as using the several electronic means by the hospitality
industry to show their presence in the market. As the industries are becoming globalized so to
make connection with the individual all over the world different social media sources as well
as mobile technology are used by the organization for different purposes.
Case study
In this report, New Inn hotel has been selected which is the small and medium sized 3
star organization which is situated in London. This hotel has strong online presence in the
market and it is using the social media for promoting their products and services. But still due
to the increasing travel and tourism, the hotel is planning for expanding its services through
social media. Vast developments have been seen in the hospitality industry due to ICT. Now
the hotels are promoting their products by using different websites. Through information
communication technology they are communicating their presence through online means.
This report will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the social media and mobile
marketing on SME and reviews about this will be given by author in the form of literature
review. Discussion will be made about the technologies which are used by the New Inn
Hotel. Besides this, new objectives will be developed for New Inn hotel for developing the
new social media strategy.
LITERATURE REVIEW
ICT and hospitality
With the development in travel and tourism, the hospitality industry is changing
frequently according to the needs and requirements of the customers. There are many
different types of hotels which are established for the different purposes like boutique hotel,
extended stay hotel, select service hotel etc (Lee and et.al., 2012) . In the recent years, only it
has been seen that the customers are travelling more and due to this reason, the business of
the hospitality industry is increasing. Not only for the leisure activities, due to globalization
of the business, the individuals have become frequent travellers as they have to go abroad to
carry out their business activities. In this sense, the hotels are gaining advantage which is
helpful in increasing their profitability as well as productivity.

According to Yin and et.al., (2011), with the increasing competition in the market, it
has becoming significant for the hotels to differentiate their products and services from the
other rivalries so that the customers can visit the hotel again. One of the main tools for
differentiation is the social media and the mobile technology which is helping in enhancing
the activities of the organization (Jagoda and et.al., 2010). With the up-grdation of the
technology, the customers are becoming techno savvy which is forcing the hotel as well as
the hospitality industry to adopt the new and the innovative tool which can help in making the
function more advanced. According to the facts and figures it has been witnessed that due to
the increasing demand, around 9 million individuals were recruited in the hospitality industry.
This is the big achievement as it has been seen that the hotel industry needs employees to
carry out their functions.
According to Garín-Muñoz and Pérez-Amaral (2011), through giving their stories the
hotel can share their experience regarding their property and the staff which are working in
the hotel. Due to the changing thinking and perspective, the uses of the tools are also
changing significantly. By using the Web 2.0 the hotels are changing their motive of
marketing their services now they are merely using to interact with their guests. From the
facts, it has been witnessed that the social media platforms which are generally used in the
hotel industry are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram etc. this reason is that the
customers can be easily approached which will help the organization in communicating their
values to them.
Factors hindering SME in adopting ICT
According to Verma Stock and McCarthy (2012), there are some of the disadvantages
also which are required to be considered by the hotel to carry out their marketing activity on
the mobile phones. The excessive cost is incurred in carrying out the marketing from the
mobile phones. Proper setup is required by the hotel to effectively market their products and
services (Jagoda and et.al., 2010). Besides this, the data base of the customers is required to
be managed because with the help of their contact only the organization can send them the
messages. But on the other hand, it is cheaper than the social media marketing as fewer
amounts is spend on marketing the products on social media than mobile technology.
On the other hand, the main aspect is that in the service industry work of mouth is the
most important concept through which the good and the bad reviews are given to the
hospitality organization (Xiang and Gretzel, 2010). If the client gives the positive review of
the hotel on Facebook then it will help in attracting more customers. This is opposite in case
of the negative reviews. With the positive aspects there is some of the negative impact of the