Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Emirates Airlines Ticketing

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of innovation and entrepreneurship within the Emirates Airlines ticketing department, focusing on its evolution and the application of the applied creativity and innovation model. The report begins by outlining the historical development of the ticketing department, identifying four distinct eras: the reservation system, the automated boarding pass era, the introduction of online booking, and the current online ticketing system. It then identifies and discusses key challenges faced during the 1980s and 1990s, such as automation malfunctions and the slow adoption of online booking. The report applies the applied creativity and innovation model to address these challenges, proposing solutions for improving the automated systems and promoting online ticket booking. The analysis includes defining the problems, exploring potential solutions, generating ideas, designing improvements, and implementing changes. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of innovation and the applied creativity framework in understanding and resolving challenges within the hospitality and tourism industries, highlighting the potential benefits for Emirates Airlines. The report references relevant sources to support its findings.

Running head: INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HOSPITALITY
INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HOSPITALITY
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Innovation in the Emirates Airline ticketing department................................................................2
Challenges in the different eras of ticket booking...........................................................................4
Challenge identification...................................................................................................................4
Application of applied creativity and innovation model.................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The report is focused towards understanding the prospects of innovation and
entrepreneurship that can be applied to the hospitality and tourism industry. The selected
organization for the study is the Emirates Airline Services. The specific department that has been
selected for the study is the ticket booking department. Hence, the focus of the study is towards
understanding the innovative aspects that have been historically attached with the functions of
the department. The applied creativity and innovation model would be used as an essential
framework for determining the value of the analysis process. The model consist of the 5
important elements that are important towards the innovation processes that take place across the
various organizations. The hospitality and tourism industry is and important industry and relies
much on innovative processes of business functionality. The industry has to depend much on
innovative processes of product and service offerings and entrepreneurships to create better
engagements with the customers. Utilization of the applied creativity and the innovation
framework can provide strong evidences of innovation aspects.
Innovation in the Emirates Airline ticketing department
The selected organization is the Emirates Airlines. The organization is one of the largest
airlines service provider in the UAE. The organization is important in the context of the
hospitality and the tourism industry. The various aspects that have affected the historic
development of the organizations need to be discussed. The Emirates airlines was formed in
1985 and is currently headquartered in Dubai international Airport (Emirates flights, 2019). The
ticket department of the company is one of the most important departments in regards to its
overall functions. The department went through significant evolutionary processes since the
inception of the Airline services. In regards to the same there can be different eras of the

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ticketing process in the ticketing departments that can be considered. Four different such areas
can be identified as the ticketing departments evolving service delivery systems are being
analyzed. Innovative and creative processes in the services of the Emirates Airlines have been an
important aspect that has contributed towards the development of the airlines. Emirates is
presently one of the largest airlines service provider globally.
The first of the four eras of the development of the ticketing department is the reservation
system. This was the system that was originally used in the aviation industry from 1950 onwards.
This system was used by the Emirates Airlines as the very first ticketing system that was
established. This was prevalent hence in the primary phase of the Emirates Airlines. This was a
ticketing system where the reservation systems allowed to view the flight details. This system
integrated the booking automation systems. Tickets could be reserved by phone or directly at the
airport. The second era of the ticket booking system started only shortly after the starting of the
Airlines. In this phase, the automated boarding passes consisting of a magnetic strip were
developed. The strip helped in developing the better tracking of the tickets. This ensured a better
and hassle free system for ticket checking. The 1990s was a significant era for the development
of the ticket booking functions. In this time, the very first online booking facilities were being
provided. As UAE had highly developed its infrastructural facilities at this time integration of the
ticket booking process became easier. The ticket booking department could be sent emails
requesting ticket booking and upon successful confirmation of tickets the email confirmation of
the same were sent to the customer via emails. The fourth phase of innovation occurred in 2008,
at this time the entire ticket booking process was taken online Tickets could be booked from
various sources online. The website of the company became an effective ticket booking portal
and e-tickets could be booked without sending any email ticket request. Ticket booking became

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easier and provided more information. The users after this had more opportunity to book the
right tickets at the right time. This era made was for further development of the ticket booking
functions in the future.
Challenges in the different eras of ticket booking
Challenge identification
Among the various eras that were discussed two important eras can be essentially
discussed with regards to the value that was created in terms of innovative development.
However, the main focus is toward discussing the most important challenges that were faced at
this time. The first era that can be identified in this case is the 1980s era and the other era that
can be considered is the 1990s era. The challenges that can be identified with regards to the
1980s innovative model of ticket booking are the problems that were faced due to automation
malfunction. The magnetic strip sometimes malfunctioned at the ticket checking machine. The
automated boarding pass could face issues that were difficult to easily solve and this resulted in
customer inconveniences (Bagrecha & Alam, 2016). The 1990’s era saw the first introduction of
the online ticket booking system. The major problem that existed at this time was firstly, the
unawareness of many in regards to the email address for requesting ticket booking. Secondly,
there were not many people who could avail the ticket booking services online due to the faulty
internet services and the online booking system (Amabile & Pratt, 2016). Hence it can be said
that the system of online booking was not properly accustomed with the customer base. This
resulted in the failure of the development of the system for a long time.
Application of applied creativity and innovation model

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The first challenge can be considered through the applied creativity and innovation model
concerning its effectiveness. In this case the issues that were seen with the 1980s system could
be assessed essentially.
Define- The problem as discussed above was related to automation malfunction. The automation
process became faulty and the magnetic strip began to sometimes malfunction for the company.
It is important to consider that the system was beginning to make the customers unhappy.
Explore- The tickets that were generates were faulty at times. The customers had to change the
tickets at times to stop malfunction difficulties. The magnetic strips failed to be recognized by
the sensors and resulted in longer wait times for the customers. The nature of the tickets became
very untrustworthy for the customers (Abdullah & Kadhim, 2016).
Ideation- The best idea in this case was to replace the magnetic strip recognition system and
utilize better boarding pass systems. It was important that the customer journey was made
smoother and less time consuming.
Design- Better technical designs were important to consider in this phase. However, another
system that could be used was the presentation of two tickets. One that could be checked through
the sensors and the other that could be checked by a ticket attendant if the sensor was not
present.
Implementation- For the implementation process the company had to create two teams. One was
to be the technical team that created better ticket automation systems and ticket checking
systems. The other was the ticket checker help team that would assist the customers to quickly
resolve their ticket issues by manually enabling the ticket verification process.

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The second challenge that can be considered with the given innovation model is the issue that
was faced by the first online booking of the tickets after the changes made in the 1990s.
Define- The problem could be defined as a problem of unawareness. The lack of free internet
access in that time created a significant problem for the accessibility of the online ticket booking
system.
Explore- One of the major issue was the fact that the email where the request needed to be sent
was not readily available for the customer. Secondly, a large number of customers had to rely on
the traditional systems in order to book tickets due to lack of online device availability.
Ideation- The need to tackle this challenge was based on the requirement of the organization to
create a better way to educate the customer about the booking system. At the same time tit
became extremely important to create special online booking stations.
Design- First, in all the advertisements that were provided by the organization a detailed online
ticket booking process is needed to be explained. This needs to be done along with the
information given for the email addresses where the tickets could be booked. This could create a
framework for effective development of the system (Santos & Gillis, 2019). At the same time
booking stations needed to be created.
Implementation- The implementation process would comprise of the better promotion of the
online booking system. The process needed to be provided in detail through all the advertisings
that were given. The creation of special booking stations in important areas of the city was
important. These would be beside the government offices and important city areas that would be
much more convenient distance wise for the larger number of customers.
Conclusion

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The implications of the study point to the fact that innovative processes often come with
challenges. One of the important usage of the innovation and applied creativity framework is to
develop an effective guideline to understand a problem and arrive at important solutions
regarding the same. The emirates airlines could greatly benefit from the implementation of the
solutions.

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References
Abdullah, M. N., & Kadhim, E. H. (2016). Airline mobile reservation
development. development, 3(10), 1-3.
Amabile, T. M., & Pratt, M. G. (2016). The dynamic componential model of creativity and
innovation in organizations: Making progress, making meaning. Research in
Organizational Behavior, 36, 157-183.
Bagrecha, C., & Alam, S. (2016). Challenges and Opportunities in Online Reservation of Bus
Tickets. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 18(6), 32-38.
Emirates flights – Book a flight, browse our flight offers and explore the Emirates Experience.
(2019). Retrieved 22 August 2019, from https://www.emirates.com/in/english/
Muhisn, Z. A. A., Muhisn, S. A., Ali, W. H., & Jabbar, R. (2017). Architecture Model for Flight
Booking System Based on Web Services. Architecture, 4(3).
Santos, B. F., & Gillis, M. M. (2019). Optimizing the prices for airline flight
passes. Transportation Research Procedia, 37, 266-273.