Digital Technology and the Visitor Economy

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
AND THE VISITOR
ECONOMY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review.........................................................................................................................3
Case study evaluation..................................................................................................................5
New digital technologies strategies.............................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
The one thing that has advanced more than anything in the history of the entire world is
the digital technology. These are the electronic tools, devices, resources and systems that
generate, process or store the data. And for a better understanding these are the social media
platforms, mobile phones and multimedia. These technologies have transformed the old ways of
doing businesses (Jacobides, Sundararajan and Van Alstyne 2019). For example; in visitor
economy digital technologies have redefined each and every aspect. It has made number of
processes easy and cheap. The decisions, the bookings, even the checkouts today are done
through the mobile apps. With the evolution of time a lot has evolved and every other traditional
pattern of doing things have become obsolete with the introduction of digital technology in
today's world. Premier Inn, a British hotel chain is the one of the largest brand in UK. The chain
comprises over 800 hotels and over 72000 rooms. It has its establishments in number of areas
covering airports, city centres, and suburbs. This report will comprise challenges, opportunities
and impacts of the digital technology over visiting economy, a literature review and
recommendations on the strategies to be used by the visitor economy business in context to the
digital technologies. Also, the report's main parts are the digital communication strategy and
literature review.
MAIN BODY
Literature Review
According to Tairova, Xurramov and Odinaeva, (2021) the digital technologies hold a
significant impact on the visitor's economy. The easy access to the mandatory information
through the technologies such as mobile phones, computers, websites and various other online
platforms has made the people to take decisions a lot faster than before. The early period of
visiting the place first, and then finalizing it, has completely changed now. With the technologies
in action, there are many things that are cut short. Now only going through the pictures on the
digital platforms and comparing all the prices and patterns have made the work of the people a
lot easier and this has also encouraged people to travel more and often. As a lot of work is
already cut short with these advancements, it has boosted the growth of visitor economy in the
world. Where the author is sharing views that there are a lot of benefits to the businesses of the
visiting economy because of the digital technologies, Hristoforova, I.V. And et.al., (2019)
reveals that, though digital technologies have made the business of the economy go high by 5

times, but on the same hand its has also lowered the profit area of all the businesses. As the
digital technologies have evolved, it has shown an immense growth in the whole visiting
economy sector, but this has also attracted large number of people to open up same businesses
like this, which again has lead to a huge competition. As a result, the profit margins of the
businesses of the entire visiting economy has also gone down. The author also reflects on the
non-availability of the sources within some businesses, which is making them to miss out on
number of things that can give them good results. So the entire concept of digital technologies is
going both ways, where it is benefiting large number of businesses in the visiting economy, it is
also giving a hard time to some businesses as they can not afford to adopt such digital
transformations.
As per the views of Kayumovich, (2020) every thing in today's world is being done
online and to cope up with the world today, it is very important to adopt such technologies and
make right use of them. Every business especially in the visiting economy is done mostly
through the websites, apps and number of social media platforms. These platforms also helps in
attracting good number of customers to a particular hotel chain. By showing all the features of
the hotel, their facilities, the offers, festive season discounts and number of other things, hotels
can easily target different segments of the customers. Likewise, Premier Inn, being one of the
largest hotel chain of UK, has adopted various technologies. The hotel chain is indulged in all
kind of technologies that can provide the customers a luxurious experience in the hotel. It has its
own website and app for the hotel that provides the customers with all the details that are
required in order to book the hotel rooms. Starting from the check in time to the check out time.
The hotel has features of live chat on its website, number of discounts for the customers who
book room through the hotel's app and various things as well. This make the customers to put so
much effort on finalizing the hotel and book the hotel simply by just one click. The hotel also
provides features such as virtual reality that gives customers the customer a great idea of the
experience they can have in the premises. But these are the features that are not affordable by
every business of the visiting economy. Premier Inn has its own app that facilitates most of the
work. The orders and other room service callings are also done through the app only. All this
adoption of the technological instruments provides a good comfort to the customers and helps in
attracting large number of customer to the hotel. But as said by Sharma, Sharma and Chaudhary,
(2020) digital technologies are great in providing every kind of comfort to the customers and

Digital technology in
the Visitor Economy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
Literature review....................................................................................................................3
Case Study Evaluation (Findings)........................................................................................11
Discussion.............................................................................................................................12
New Social Media Strategy..................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES:.............................................................................................................................15
Books and Journals:..............................................................................................................15
Online ..................................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
In today's business environment, hospitality industry is performing very well in the
market. It has a wide scope as it includes many types of business such as accommodation,
tourism, food and lodging, etc. Tourism is becoming one of the most successful business and
their success is depending on promotional strategy (Buhalis, 2019). Every business in hospitality
is now using social media as it is one of the best strategies of promotion of their business in the
market. In current environment, every person is connecting with social media and that's why
hospitality industry is focusing on social media strategy. Social media is the method of
promoting goods and services by direct connection with the people. It is helpful for identifying
and analysing the demands of consumers. Social media is providing many details about the
consumers tastes and preference (Gretzel and et.al., 2020). With the help of their search history
hospitality organisations can easily analyse their behaviour. In this context, Apex Hotels Ltd. is
the family owned business that started in 1996 in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. They are providing a
wide range of hospitality services to the consumers. They are aiming to provide a signature
welcome to the customers so that they enjoy their experience. This report will be critically
analyse the social media strategy of company along with the suggested strategy so that they can
take competitive advantage.
MAIN BODY
TASK
Literature review
Social Media
According to The Importance Of Social Media Marketing, 2020, Social media is defined
as the use of social media and networking in order to promote the goods and services of
organisations. It is one of the most important and useful method for organisation as it assist
organisation to engage with the customers in order to understand their tastes and preferences.
This is crucial for organisation to understand the tastes and preferences of customers so that they
can produce those type of goods and services. After understanding the current trend in market, it
is found that it becomes important for organisations as they should know about the platforms of
social media market ring and also able to apply in their organisation. Social media is a helpful

tool which needs to used by every organisations. In hospitality industry, it is identified that
companies are using social media platform in order to invite people for enjoying the services.
Social media is one of the best way of communicating directly with the customers as it
removes all the mediators and company is able to directly contact with the customers. There are
many organisations which performing very well due to their social media marketing
(Alghizzawi, Salloum and Habes, 2018). It becomes the most widely used method for a company
in which they are using as a marketing tool. The reason behind this is every person is now
connecting with the social media as it becomes in important part of our life. That's why many
organisations are using social media platform in order to analyse the behaviour of customers.
Today's business environment gets very complex as well as dynamic, due to this company needs
to focus on their marketing strategy in which a marketers should understand the demand of
customers. For that purpose, it becomes one of the best tool from which marketers are able to
collect important information about their customers that helps in making a marketing strategy.
Day by day the competition is increasing and it becomes tough for company that how they can
retain their customers in the market (Chatzigeorgiou and Christou, 2019). For that purpose,
social media helps to attach with their customers and due to this company always trying to post
campaigns that helpful for retaining customers.
Apex Hotel Ltd. is the hospitality organisation which are providing services to the
customers such as room accommodation, food, lodging, etc. Day by day the competition is
increasing and that's why Apex Hotel Ltd. is formulating a digital marketing strategy in which
they give importance to social media marketing (Liu, Zhang and Yao, 2021). More discussion
about their strategy is mentioned below.
Current strategy that used by Apex Hotel Ltd.
Company needs to understand that social media marketing is becoming most essential
strategy for organisation as every customers is connecting with social media platforms
(Assimakopoulos and et.al., 2017). There are many social media platforms are using by
organisation such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. It is identified that Apex
hotels has seven city hotels in UK. They are marketing their brand with the help of social media
platform. They are doing this with the help of post information about their brand on social media
post. They are currently using Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.