Entrepreneurship for Hospitality Leaders

This report analyzes the impact of disruptive technology in the Australian hotel and hospitality industry, with a focus on online travel agencies (OTA). It discusses the previously existing technology, the effects of OTA, and future trends of disruptive technology. The report also examines the impact of disruptive technology on other sectors in Australia, such as education and commerce.

Running Head: ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
Entrepreneurship for Hospitality Leaders
Name of the Student
Name of the University

1ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................2
2.0 Findings and Discussions..........................................................................................................2
2.1 Disruptive Technology..........................................................................................................2
2.2 Disruptive Technology in Australian Hotel and Hospitality Industry...................................3
2.2.1 Previously Existing Technology.....................................................................................4
2.2.2 Online Travel Agents (OTA)..........................................................................................4
2.2.3 Impact of OTA on Australian Tourism..........................................................................6
2.3 Discussions............................................................................................................................8
2.3.1 Impact of Disruptive Technology in Hospitality Industry on Other Sectors in Australia
.................................................................................................................................................8
2.2.5 Future Trends of Disruptive Technology.......................................................................9
3.0 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................11

2ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
1.0 Introduction
In modern day, technology is the biggest driving force for the economic development in
the world. From the past century, technology has been under constant development that is further
accelerated with time. Generally, an older technology is slowly replaced by a new technology
though transitional phases (Guttentag, 2015). However, in some cases, the new technology is
implemented abruptly for replacing another technology that is already established and working.
This type of technology is called disruptive technology. This type of technology can be noticed
in almost all industries and has been able to bring significant changes in the industries. In
Australia, disruptive technology has been significantly implemented in the hotel and hospitality
industry and has been able to bring massive changes in the tourism industry in various states of
Australia (Jones, Hillier & Comfort, 2016). Initially, for a long time, the hotels of Australia was
run by the same system all over until the 2nd decade of the 21st century, when the entire industry
was completely revolutionized with the entry of new and better technologies.
In this report, disruptive technology and its types have been analyzed and discussed.
Furthermore, the hospitality industry in Australia has been analyzed regarding the already
existing technology that is extremely used and the effects of disruptive technology on the same.
2.0 Findings and Discussions
2.1 Disruptive Technology
Disrupting technology is a new and advanced innovation that has the ability to replace an
older version of similar technology entirely by creating a new value in terms of market or
function. Unlike transitional implementation of some technologies, disruptive technology is

3ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
implemented rapidly by replacing the current setup. Some of the most notable disruptive
technologies are as follows.
Academic Content – One of the most well known disruptive technologies in the current
world is the innovation of Wikipedia – an online data source and contains significant amount of
information on almost every possible thing in the world. Before the invention of Wikipedia, the
bulk information containing material was Encyclopedia Britannica – a set of hardbound books
that used to list and describe about various things and subjects (Smith & Guttentag, 2017).
However, with the availability of the online source (Wikipedia), the popularity of Encyclopedia
decreased rapidly due to its physical space, weight and time consuming to find a particular piece
of information and in 2012, the printing of Encyclopedia was closed down completely.
Data Storage – Previously in the initial computing devices, data storage was mainly done
on low space physical drives like floppy discs, CDs, DVDs and others. However, with the
invention of flash drives like pen drive and more recently cloud storage system, these physical
storage drives became obsolete.
Computing – Computing also experienced significant disruptive technology throughout
its course of development. Initially, the basic computing actions like mathematical calculations
were done using calculators or manually. This was replaced by the desktop computers that were
faster and better devices for computation purposes (Xiang et al., 2015). More recently, these
computing processes are done by smartphones that are easy to manage, carry and operate.
2.2 Disruptive Technology in Australian Hotel and Hospitality Industry
Like every other technology, hospitality industry has been significantly affected by
disruptive technology worldwide. This also includes Australia, where the disruptive technology

4ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
has changed the entire structure of the hospitality industry. One of the most common and popular
disruptive technology that has changed the Australian hotel industry is the OTA (Online Travel
Agency). Some existing technologies and the new disruptive technology are discussed below.
2.2.1 Previously Existing Technology
In the previous system, the hotel industry of Australia was mainly run manually except
for the data entry and storage. In this system, when a tourist wanted to book a room or a tour in
Australia, he had to call the agency or hotel authority and book the services accordingly. There
were also booking systems on spot that were managed on first come first served basis (Palacios-
Marqués, Merigó & Soto-Acosta, 2015). After the booking was done and deal finalized, the
personal details of the tourists were entered in forms manually and these papers were stored by
the authority. Furthermore, when the tourists paid the money for the deal, the receipts were made
in papers and a copy was saved by the authority. The main issue of this system was the
unreliability of paper documents as long term records for the dealings. Paper documents can
easily be damaged, tampered or misplaced resulting in loss of valuable information of the hotels
as well as the tourists (Sigala, 2017). Furthermore, due to manual handling of the operations, the
process was very slow and erroneous. Hence, a new system was needed that could entirely
change this system with a faster, better and efficient data operation and storage.
2.2.2 Online Travel Agents (OTA)
For Australian tourism landscape, online travel agents or OTA have brought about
disruptive innovation that the entire tourism management process completely. The features of
OTA are explained in the following points.

5ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
Online Booking – Instead of calling or directly contracting the hotel authority or travel
agents, the tourist now has the option of online booking. Using a simple internet connection, the
tourist can now visit the company / hotel’s website for booking services. Most of these websites
have detailed informative pages regarding the details of the organization, services, packages,
contact numbers and others. For hotel based websites, there are detailed information regarding
type and availability of rooms, rates of the rooms, pictorial illustration of the rooms, availability
of air conditioning system, food and others (Parker, Van Alstyne & Choudary, 2016). For travel
agencies, the websites contain information regarding various schemes of tour packages along
with the prices so that the tourist can choose a package that suits him the most. From all these
details, the tourist can have a very detailed idea of the services and he does not need to contact
the authorities directly. With more recent developments, the tourists can now book services
directly online and pay their money through online transactions. Not only this process is
extremely fast, there is lack of any error and it also removes the need for paper documentations
for storing the booking information and the tourists’ personal data.
Trip Planning – OTA also assists tourists who are not interested in booking services
online. For the tourists who are only seeking travel plans and route maps, OTA can be extremely
useful. If the tourist just enters the source and destination as well as the number of days he is
willing to spend, the OTA can generate a suitable and detailed trip planning that includes all the
important places to be visited and all the available hotels in the areas (Chathoth et al., 2016).
Furthermore, in order to assist the tourists, the OTA gives the option to filter the types of hotels
according to their prices, types, service availability and others. OTA also provides suitable
recommendations for car booking, food stops and other relevant trip information.

6ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
Discounts and Offers – One main and exciting feature of the OTA is the availability of
huge discounts in certain seasons for online booking of hotels or travel guides. With a large
number of OTA growing up rapidly in Australia, each organization is competing with another
and hence, provides as high discount as possible for online booking customers (Bowie et al.,
2016). As a result, the tourists can often avail good discounts even if they choose high end
expensive hotels. However, it is the responsibility of the tourists to find the best offers by
comparing different OTAs.
Advanced Web Search – During planning trips online, the tourists often find it hard to
find certain places or hotels due to less popularity or obscurity (Turban et al., 2017). The OTAs
provide the tourists with detailed maps where each and every place, hotels, travel requirements
and others are marked and additionally, the tourist has the option to find them using simple
keywords in the search menu provided in the website.
Language Support – In the previous system, the tourists often faced significant problem
in communicating with the hotel authorities or travel agencies due to language barrier. This was
more common in non-english speaking tourists with little or no exposure to English or even the
native language of the tourist spot (Fraj, Matute & Melero, 2015). However, the OTA websites
come with support for a wide variety of languages and hence, the tourist is able to get significant
amount of information in his own language easily.
2.2.3 Impact of OTA on Australian Tourism
From the analysis of the growth and development of Australian tourism industry, it can
be said OTA has significantly accelerated the growth of Australian tourism. Before the
implementation of OTA, tourism was not very well developed that was mainly due to the harsh

7ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
and unfavorable landscape in Australia as well as lack of sufficient knowledge regarding the
tourist places that existed in the country. With the OTA, the tourists came to know more about
the country and also with the fast and efficient processing of their bookings, the growth of
tourism in Australia was significantly accelerated (Taneja, 2016). The growth of tourism in
Australia since 2000 is evident from the graph shown below.
Figure 1: Growth of Tourism in Australia Since 2000
(Source: Gobble, 2016)

8ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
2.3 Discussions
2.3.1 Impact of Disruptive Technology in Hospitality Industry on Other Sectors in
Australia
The disruptive technologies in the hospitality industry of Australia have also significantly
affected other sectors in Australia including commerce, education and others. From a study, it
has been found that since the changes in hospitality policies due to disruptive technologies, the
education system of Australia underwent a massive change (Veijola et al., 2014). The number of
international students in Australia grew rapidly as thousands of students seeking quality
education from various Asian countries, New Zealand, Middle East, Europe or even USA are
coming to various universities in Australia. The number of international student enrolments in
Australia is shown in the following graphical illustration.
Figure 2: International Enrolments in Australia (1994-2013)
(Source: Gobble, 2016)

9ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
From the graph, it can be seen that after 2001, the enrolment count gained a massive
boost and huge growth in the number is seen in the following years. From this, it can be safely
deduced that this massive growth owes to the advent of disruptive technologies in Australia.
2.2.5 Future Trends of Disruptive Technology
With the current trends of changes and developments, some future trends of disruptive
technology in Australia can be further deduced. From the rapid growth of technology worldwide,
it is evident that very soon, even more disruptive technologies will come very soon (Cheng,
2016). Even in the case of hospitality industry, there will be more disruptive technologies in the
very near future. Scientists and developers are currently researching on development of more
advanced OTA features and are also trying to integrate artificial intelligence with the same. With
more advanced features and well developed AI, more changes can be expected in the hospitality
industry.
One area that needs to be explored in the upcoming technologies is the security of
personal information and online payments from the customer’s end. In the current system,
various cyber security threats can cause loss of personal information, payment details as well as
money (while performing online transactions) (Salvioni, 2016). Hence, these issues need to be
addressed before rolling out further disruptive updates.
3.0 Conclusion
From the entire analysis, it has been found that disruptive technologies have significant
and major impacts on Australian hospitality industry that in turn has affected other industries as
well. Major disruptive technologies like OTA have revolutionized the tourism system in
Australia and provide the tourists with easy options of online trip planning, booking, payments

10ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
and others. In addition, these technologies have significantly improved the quality of hospitality
in Australia that has also helped the growth of education and commercial sectors of Australia. In
the last few years, the international enrolments in Australia have received massive boost and the
commercial sector has been enhanced with the entry of new business organizations along with
the recruitment of international employees. Hence, it is evident that the disruptive technologies
have contributed to the rapid growth of Australian economy through tourism, education and
commerce and will continue to do so with future updates as well.

11ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
References
Bowie, D., Buttle, F., Brookes, M., & Mariussen, A. (2016). Hospitality marketing. Taylor &
Francis.
Chathoth, P. K., Ungson, G. R., Harrington, R. J., & Chan, E. S. (2016). Co-creation and higher
order customer engagement in hospitality and tourism services: A critical
review. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(2), 222-245.
Cheng, M. (2016). Sharing economy: A review and agenda for future research. International
Journal of Hospitality Management, 57, 60-70.
Fraj, E., Matute, J., & Melero, I. (2015). Environmental strategies and organizational
competitiveness in the hotel industry: The role of learning and innovation as determinants
of environmental success. Tourism Management, 46, 30-42.
Gobble, M. M. (2016). Defining disruptive innovation. Research-Technology
Management, 59(4), 66-71.
Guttentag, D. (2015). Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism
accommodation sector. Current issues in Tourism, 18(12), 1192-1217.
Jones, P., Hillier, D., & Comfort, D. (2016). Sustainability in the hospitality industry: Some
personal reflections on corporate challenges and research agendas. International Journal
of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(1), 36-67.
Palacios-Marqués, D., Merigó, J. M., & Soto-Acosta, P. (2015). Online social networks as an
enabler of innovation in organizations. Management Decision, 53(9), 1906-1920.

12ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOSPITALITY LEADERS
Parker, G. G., Van Alstyne, M. W., & Choudary, S. P. (2016). Platform Revolution: How
Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economyand How to Make Them Work for
You. WW Norton & Company.
Salvioni, D. (2016). Hotel Chains and the Sharing Economy in Global Tourism.
Sigala, M. (2017). Collaborative commerce in tourism: implications for research and
industry. Current Issues in Tourism, 20(4), 346-355.
Smith, S. L., & Guttentag, D. A. (2017). Assessing Airbnb as a disruptive innovation relative to
hotels: Substitution and comparative performance expectations. International Journal of
Hospitality Management, 64, 1-10.
Taneja, N. K. (2016). Airline Industry: Poised for Disruptive Innovation?. Routledge.
Turban, E., Outland, J., King, D., Lee, J. K., Liang, T. P., & Turban, D. C. (2017). Electronic
Commerce 2018: A Managerial and Social Networks Perspective. Springer.
Veijola, S., Molz, J. G., Pyyhtinen, O., Hockert, E., Grit, A., Molz, J. G., & Höckert, E.
(2014). Disruptive tourism and its untidy guests: Alternative ontologies for future
hospitalities. Springer.
Xiang, Z., Wang, D., O’Leary, J. T., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2015). Adapting to the internet: trends
in travelers’ use of the web for trip planning. Journal of Travel Research, 54(4), 511-527.